When Politics, Pseudoscience, and Women’s Health Collide

For almost two decades, I’ve worked on the frontline of women’s health as a dietitian, author, and someone determined to cut through the noise of what I like to call wellness wankery. I’ve seen fads come and go, influencers rise and fall, and countless women confused, dismissed, or outright harmed by a system that too often fails them.

But what we’re witnessing now feels different. It’s bigger than a bad detox trend or an Instagram influencer pushing celery juice. Today, women’s health is colliding with politics in ways that echo some of history’s darkest playbooks. And if we’re not paying attention, decades of progress risk being undone.

History tells us that when authoritarian or fascist-leaning politics take hold, women’s health and autonomy are among the first casualties. Think Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, where women were pushed into rigid roles as mothers and breeders of the state, abortion was criminalised, contraception restricted, and pseudoscience weaponised in the name of “national strength.”

The strategy was clear: control the narrative, control women’s bodies, dismiss real science when it doesn’t serve the agenda. Fast forward to today, and the parallels are hard to ignore.

Let’s look at what’s happening right now in the United States:

• Reproductive rights rolled back:  Abortion access has been stripped away in many states. Pregnant women are being denied life-saving care, doctors fear prosecution, and reproductive autonomy, the cornerstone of women’s health, is under siege.
• Pseudoscience in power: From Trump’s stage-sharing with RFK Jr. to unfounded claims linking vaccines to autism or Tylenol in pregnancy to neurodevelopmental disorders, misinformation is being normalised from the very top. These alternative takes erode public trust, push women toward unsafe choices, and flood the gap where evidence-based medicine should be.
• The wellness industry stepping in: As science gets politicised and access to healthcare shrinks, the “wellness” world swoops in. Supplements sold as cures, restrictive diets packaged as hormone hacks, influencers promising fertility fixes, often without a shred of evidence. Women, already underserved and dismissed by traditional medicine, are easy prey.

Individually, each of these is concerning. Together, they form a storm that threatens to push women’s health back by decades.

When science becomes negotiable, women always pay first.

Restrict abortion? Maternal mortality rises. Undermine vaccines? Pregnant women and babies face preventable risks. Spread pseudoscience? Women spend billions chasing unproven “fixes” instead of receiving real care. Politicise medical advice? Women’s trust in healthcare crumbles, leaving space for dangerous misinformation to flourish.

I’ve sat across from women who delayed treatment because a wellness guru told them food alone could “balance their hormones" or "heal their mind".I’ve seen patients reject medications because social media labeled them “toxic.”

Now add state-sanctioned pseudoscience and reproductive restrictions to the mix. It’s a global crisis.

Here’s what I need to make clear: this is not about partisan politics. It’s about whether women can access science-based care without ideology or pseudoscience dictating what happens to their bodies.

Fascism, historically and today, thrives on controlling bodies and information. When leaders elevate conspiracy over consensus, when women are told their role is to reproduce, when healthcare is shaped by ideology rather than evidence; that’s authoritarianism dressed in a white coat.

Women deserve better than wellness wankery dressed up as healthcare. We deserve better than politicians playing doctor. And we deserve a medical system that listens, respects and empowers us and not one that rolls back our rights or leaves us vulnerable to the next flashy pseudoscience trend.

As health professionals, as citizens, and as women, we need to:

• Call out pseudoscience loudly and unapologetically.
• Push for policy grounded in evidence, not ideology.
• Defend reproductive autonomy as a non-negotiable foundation of health.
• Demand that women’s voices and experiences lead the conversation.

At the end of the day, this fight is bigger than a diet trend or an anti-vax soundbite. It’s about whether women can own their health, their choices, and their futures without history repeating itself.

And I, for one, refuse to let wellness wankery or fascist throwbacks dictate women’s health in the 21st century.