Dr. Christiane Northrup scores 5/5 on our Quack Scale. She represents a high risk to both her patients and the general public and we encourage members of the public and her patients to seek alternate medical or health advice. Do not follow recommendations from this individual relating to your personal health or the health of others. In particular, her advice relating to Covid is unfounded and dangerous.
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Qualification: Christiane Northrup is a board-certified OB/GYN physician, Dr. Northrup graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and completed her residency at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston. She was also an assistant clinical professor of OB/GYN at Maine Medical Center for 20 years.
Current Licensing Status: WITHDRAWN/TERMINATED BY LICENSEE
Resident: Yarmouth, Maine
Existing Complaints: None listed publically.
Website: drnorthrup.com
Once enjoying the fame and glow of the spotlight as Oprah Winfrey’s in-house medical expert on all matters relating to women’s health, the fall of Dr. Northrup has been nothing short of spectacular. Once respected in medical circles, she is now widely shunned as she espouses her radical medical and health views to her online followers, a group numbering in excess of 500 000 and loosely referred to as the Warriors of the Radical Light. At 71, many question Northrup’s mental faculties as her views have become ever more extreme and much of the advice she offers to her followers now borders on extremely dangerous, to both their health and the health of others.
Her claims and advice now focus on conspiracy theories, support of QAnon and blatant denial of established scientific and medical facts. She encourages people not to wear masks in response to Covid, wades into vaccines, 5G cell networks, and a host of other conspiracy based theories, all of which are woven together to form a platform of medical disinformation. Her current acceptance by women rests heavily on her earlier successes and she trades on her medical credentials to lend authenticity to her warped views. She is hugely enabled by social media and her loyal following, who blindly and unthinkingly accept her statements as fact.
Possibly the most damning evidence to emerge against Northrup is a video shown recently of her, a portion of which you can watch on the link, where she makes wild claims about microchips in the Covid vaccine, DNA modification, heavy metals used to track you via 5g and Luciferous, a chemical substance, so named because it shines. The rantings of a deluded and clearly disturbed individual who has slipped into the bottomless conspiracy rabbit hole. You can watch a portion of the video on Boom and read how they completely discredit both her and her ideas.
Your most effective tool to combat her reach and influence is to de-platform her on social media. We recommend unfollowing her and reporting any accounts for harmful or misleading content. Dr Northrup, once a champion of women’s health, no longer has her female audience’s best interests at heart. Thoughtful consideration of the articles listed below will assist you in reaching the same conclusion.
Supporting Articles
Publication – Mainernews.com: Authors Nathan Bernard and Andy O’Brien, Nov 9, 2020. The deadly grift of women’s health guru Christiane Northrup. Verdict: Northrup poses a real danger to her followers and the health of the public.
It’s also hard to measure the damage to public health this doctor’s deadly advice has wrought. How many Warriors of the Radical Light have been infected with the coronavirus, and have then infected others, because they’ve taken Northrup’s quack advice that social distancing and masks are harmful? If or when a COVID-19 vaccine is developed and distributed, the refusal of anti-vaxxers like Northrup and her followers to get the shot could significantly prolong the plague. Recent polls indicate about half of Americans would refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine were one available.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Northrup’s rhetoric became increasingly militant. She’s called on county sheriffs to refuse to enforce state lockdowns and mask mandates. Invoking the language of the white supremacist group Posse Comitatus and the far-right Sovereign Citizen movement, Northrup believes sheriffs, by virtue of being elected, are the highest law-enforcement officers in the land, with the power to invoke the 10th Amendment against any measures they deem unconstitutional.
Publication – MotherJones.com: Author Kiera Butler, September 23, 2020. The Terrifying Story of How QAnon Infiltrated Moms’ Groups. Verdict: Northrup is both influential and dangerous as she exploits the trust she has earned from women over the years to spread falsehoods and endanger lives
Derek Beres, a freelance journalist who hosts the podcast Conspirituality, about conspiracy thinking in the new-age community, recently devoted an episode to Northrup. “She’s been very influential—women, mothers, have really appreciated her advocacy around the idea that you know best for your own kid, that doctors are just trying to make money off you and your family,” he told me. He explained how this fits with Northrup’s recent slide into the QAnon trope of rampant child sex trafficking. “You imagine your child being stolen or molested,” he said, “and that’s just hitting the same fear button.” Indeed, my colleague Ali Breland noted this in his 2019 piece “Why Are Right-Wing Conspiracies so Obsessed With Pedophilia?” He wrote, “Conspiracies centering on the vulnerability of children are neither new nor distinctly American.” This is just the latest iteration.
Publication – NewsGaurd.com: Authors Kendrick McDonald, John Gregory, Sophia Tewa, Virginia Padovese, and Marie Richter, 2020. COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Super-spreaders Verdict: With over 480 000 Facebook likes, Northrup has contributed as superspreader of Covid misinformation.
The Facebook page of a Maine gynecologist who was regularly featured as a health expert on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and has promoted false claims about the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV). The page is verified by Facebook, which the company says “means that Facebook confirmed that this is the authentic Page or profile for this public figure, media company or brand.”
Publication – The New York Times: Authors Sheera Frenkel, Ben Decker and Davey Alba on 20 May 2020. How the ‘Plandemic’ Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online. Verdict: Northrup’s reputation lent massive credibility to Plandemic movie, spreading Covid misinformation.
On the afternoon of May 5, Dr. Christiane Northrup, a women’s health physician, shared “Plandemic” with her nearly half a million Facebook followers. Dr. Northrup, who had developed a following from her appearances as a medical expert on “Oprah,” had previously expressed misgivings about vaccines.
Her status as a celebrity doctor made her endorsement of “Plandemic” powerful. After Dr. Northrup shared the video, more than 1,000 people also shared it, many of them to groups that oppose mandatory vaccinations, according to an analysis by The Times. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Dr Christiane Northrup images are all used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, and increase public health knowledge.
