We know the levels of devotion Bush elicits, as his supporters continuously spam us with hate and righteous indignation.

Examining Zach Bush’s Health Cult

I wrote an article back in January of this year on Dr. Zack Bush, in which I categorized him as a quack, a new age one, but a quack nonetheless, based on many of his views. We won’t be listing links in this article unless they are to claims or statements we make. Bush receives enough promotion without having to rely on us.

The danger for all doctors, and even Dr. Bush is aware of this, is that no matter how much good you do, and I am certain he manages in his own way to achieve some good, jeopardizing the life of any patient, even one, with advice that negatively impacts the patient’s health and choice of care, is considered a cardinal medical sin.

To the extent that any good you may have in fact managed to achieve, can simply be set aside in an instant, negated by the damage, however co-incidental, of your misplaced advice. Such, I believe is the fate suffered by Zach Bush and all that is still open to debate is whether his preaching is based on misplaced belief or intentional deception.

In fairness to his very vocal and at times, insanely belligerent supporters, we decided to re-examine my earlier assessment of the good doctor. I’m saddened to say the indictment stands, and if anything, is now more pronounced.

The main problem posed by Zach Bush

A lot of what Bush proclaims is in fact true and I can easily find myself in agreement with some of his statements. I’ve even highlighted a few of these below to try and produce a more balanced overview of the man. There is however an incredibly important distinction that needs to be drawn early into this article, and if as a supporter of the man and his views, you’re not willing to concede the following, then this article most certainly won’t appeal to you.

If however, you remain open to logical and reasonable debate, let’s press ahead.

So to that distinction. Uttering truths some of the time, halfbaked or otherwise, does not mean I must or should interpret everything else you utter to be the gospel truth. Where health and wellness are concerned, especially our own health, we need to remain critical of everything we’re told. This statement doesn’t merely apply to the utterances of Zach Bush, it’s applicable across every sphere of healthcare, modern or alternate. 

Health is not a religion of blind faith, it is a scientific study of the processes and diseases that affect our physiology, an effort to understand these processes, and where possible, to master them.

The problem, as I see it with Zach Bush, is that he manipulates the truths he professes to earn the undying and unquestioning loyalty of his followers. It’s an unhealthy position for any person to enjoy, irrespective of their chosen profession. It is the same failed logic that fuels the blind pursuit of religion and it most certainly has no place in healthcare.

It’s also a position Bush does nothing to discourage and it exposes the people who buy into his new-age vision of healthcare to complete and utter exploitation. 

Let’s examine a few of the controversial statements he’s made of late.

Zach Bush on the mitochondria

Bush believes that the root of all chronic diseases can be traced to the malfunctioning of the mitochondria in our cells. In a roundabout way, there is some scientific validation to this statement, as emerging science, documented in various journals, confirms the active involvement of mitochondria in many, but not all diseases. Note the use of the word INVOLVEMENT.

It is a very simple matter to quote this science to your millions of followers. Making the jump or inference, however, from “associated with” to “responsible for all” is where the wheels come off.

There is zero scientific evidence to back this claim. Absolutely not one shred and I challenge anyone reading this to produce it, including Bush if he happens across this piece. It’s a childish logic flaw, which Bush has exploited to legitimize his theories. You may as well call out the nostrils as being responsible for all disease. Every human has them and they’ve been noted in all cases of disease therefore they must be to blame.

None of the scientific literature suggests that mitochondria are at the root of all diseases. They are merely present and play a role. So are the nostrils.

Zach Bush on Germ Theory

The entirety of Bush’s germ theory rests on a common false construct, that in many ways is reminiscent of the anti-vaxx campaigner’s insistence that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The MMR fallacy has been proven to be a fabrication concocted by Dr. Andrew Wakefield (now thankfully banned from practicing medicine) to promote his own vaccine in place of the MMR.

Germ denialism has been proven to be complete nonsense and Bush’s insistence that the viral and bacterial worldsare not to blame for disease and infections boggles the mind.

Here’s a fact to kick us off. Viruses, bacteria, and parasites of all sorts are very real, can very much cause disease and do. Ask anyone in India currently battling for breath from a Covid infection what their opinions on viruses are. 

According to Bush, they’ve all brought it on themselves. If he is in fact so sure that viruses and bacteria are not the cause of disease, why does he pursue antibiotics and pesticides so aggressively, falsely labeling, for instance, the pesticide glyphosate (a synthetic compound which is a nonselective systemic herbicide, particularly effective against perennial weeds) as an antibiotic, which it most certainly is not?

The glyphosate is an interesting case in point so let’s stay with that for a moment. Why would Bush describe it as an antibiotic? It is simply a lack of understanding on his part and poor research. Licensing of the compound was based on its antimicrobial properties, which allowed it to include the category of antibiotic during the licensing process, increasing access to funds for later research.

The product works by impacting the Shikimate pathway in plants, a mechanism absent in mammals and humans. While it may exhibit antimicrobial properties in plants, glyphosate cannot be classified as an antibiotic. It’s an easy mistake to make and the result of sloppy research. 

So rather than killing us, according to Bush, viruses exist merely to update our genetic software. They are innocent and innocuous messengers of genetic code, life’s happy little programmers. If you happen to fall ill it’s the fault of pesticide manufacturers and antibiotics that have corrupted your system’s ability to be happy and healthy. This absolute drivel, particularly given the current pandemic, doesn’t even justify a response.

Pasteur provided ample evidence in support of his germ theory, as did Koch after him, and thousands of microbiologists following in their footsteps, to the point where the germ theory of disease is as established as the theory of evolution, plate tectonics, and a round planet (no, its not flat, unless of course Bush proclaims it to be) that revolves around a stationary sun. To me, the most simple deconstruction of this nonsense idea is to be found in the remote jungles of South America.

Tribes previously unknown to man were discovered in the course of the 1900s by explorers venturing into previously inaccessible portions of South America’s jungles. These tribes had no prior exposure to modern-day toxins or antibiotics, living a life of complete isolation. Contact with outsiders soon decimated their villages as they died in large numbers, stricken by viruses and bacteria they had never previously encountered. An unwelcome and unintended gift shared by the explorers. Viruses kill, bacteria kill, no matter your health status or toxicity levels. 

No doubt, had Bush been around, he would have saved the unfortunate villagers with a tonic and a little positive earth energy.

Zach Bush is the not anti, anti-vaccinist

Bush is outspoken about the covid vaccine and you’re unlikely to find his converts queueing outside the local covid vaccination center, patiently awaiting their shot. A far more likely course of action for his followers is the path he so disingenuously guides them down. Purchasing his products and following his advice in the hopes of boosting their immune systems. Here’s a news flash for converts of the Zach Bush Church of Health.

Under the right circumstances, the coronavirus will kill you, irrespective of your immune system. You can be a yoga monk perched among the rocks in the Himalayas or an Olympic athlete. If you have an undiagnosed physiological condition, are in an at-risk category, or possess a genetic predisposition towards Covid (these are documented) then it’s got your ticket punched. All the immunity, Youtube video’s and supplements in the world aren’t going to save you, but the vaccine probably will. At least, you’ll give your body a fighting chance.

Zach Bush on Autism

Autism is possibly the most used and abused condition by alternate health gurus and quacks. As modern medicine has come up pretty much empty-handed, opportunists seize on this to offer up their own theories and treatments, and while I am not discounting the possibility that someone, somewhere may have identified the actual root cause of autism, I doubt it’s Bush.

I also seriously question the wisdom of him offering an opinion on the disease if he fails to understand the simple concept of passive immunity, that mothers pass on their immunity to their newborn children, who benefit from it after birth, allowing their little bodies time to develop their own defenses. They arent “perfectly balanced against disease and organisms” as Bush ridiculously claims, they are in fact sporting mom’s immunity.

I would be more than a little cautious in even entertaining Bush for an instant on the topic of autism. 

Generations of scientists, far better qualified than Dr. Bush, have been examining autism for decades. The fact their research is only now starting to yield marginal success in understanding the disease doesn’t entitle Bush to share insights possibly obtained from a spiritual interlude with a tree.

Particularly when that advice may lead a very vulnerable sector of the community to begin experimenting on their children based on his ramblings. His reference to the runaway incidence of autism is also complete nonsense. We’ve dealt with that before and you can refer to our older article on him.

The Health Cult Lives

We are sorry to dash the hearts and minds of thousands across the globe, ardent supporters who latch onto Zach Bush’s every word but the facts, if viewed objectively, are damning in their conclusion. Dr. Bush is a quack par excellence, a gifted and highly intelligent orator and businessman who has lost the plot, either intentionally or through a firm belief in the deluded principles he espouses.

It’s hard to imagine that someone boasting his education would follow his current course out of mistaken beliefs, but we will allow him the benefit of the doubt.

Either way, with con artists and grifters, there are always financial rewards, and Bush masks his monetization strategies behind his clinics, websites, therapeutic courses, and health products he markets to his eager flock. It is, as I’ve noted before, the slickest of slick operations, carefully orchestrated and flawlessly executed.

In many ways, Bush has perfected the alternative health scam, connecting health and the environment in a seamless package he pawns incessantly to his followers, and I am certain aspiring quacks look to his model for inspiration. His work is littered with trending catchphrases, ideas like “optimize your gut brain”, “gut brain connection”, “natural ancient soil extracts”, “regenerative agriculture” and “soil extracts that work’. The eco-health warrior has arrived.

Where real solid science is concerned, however, Bush has long since parted company with it. It no longer serves his purpose, other than to selections of choice misrepresentations, abused for the sake of validating his lie. While he may not be the most ethical doctor we’ve ever encountered, he’d make one hell of a poker player. Watch your wallets!

Zach Bush, MD, 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.

The post Worshiping at The Alter of Zach Bush’s Messianic Health Cult appeared first on Medika Life.

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Qualification: Medical, Osteopathic, or Podiatric School, University Of Colorado Health Sciences Center School Of Medicine – Denver CO. Graduated: 2002. Internal Medicine,MD – Charlottesville, VA USA, Residency Completed: 2005. Bush is currently certified in only one discipline, that of Internal Medicine: Hospice & Palliative Medicine.

Current Licensing Status: Licenced to practice in Virginia by the Virginia Medical Board, License# 0101239018. You can check his current status here

Resident: Charlottesville , VA

Existing Complaints: None listed in a professional capacity.

Website: zachbushmd.com, intrinsichealthseries.com, farmersfootprint.us, ionbiome.com, themclinic.com

What happens when you cross alt-Health, traditional medicine, Deepak, and Yoda? You end up with someone like Zach Bush, MD. He is the poster boy for Predatory Health and with a string of medical qualifications behind him and a very carefully managed public profile,

Bush appears at first glance to be squeaky clean, a real medical messiah, but looks can, as we all know, be deceptive. Dig a little deeper and the real picture behind a slick, well oiled, and carefully orchestrated marketing machine emerges. One designed with a singular purpose. To enrich Zach Bush.

His website offers little gems of new-age “Deepak Chopra like nonsense-statements”, pseudoscience mixed in with traditional medicine, and his range of natural (of course) products and alternate therapies. The lines below are taken directly from his site on a page where he discusses Covid’s impact on the world.

May this respiratory virus that now shares space and time with us teach us of the grave mistakes we have made in disconnecting from our nature and warring against the foundation of the microbiome. If we choose to learn from, rather than fear, this virus, it can reveal the source of our chronic disease epidemics that are the real threat to our species.

The page also just happens to feature a range of cleverly identified products designed to boost your immune system. The insinuation is clear. Covid is a virus-like influenza and these products will help you combat it. Here is how he phrases the sales pitch.

 I’ve included below a series of Lifestyle Cornerstones to integrate into your everyday practices, particularly during respiratory risk seasons, as well as the regimen that I recommend for those feeling the need for more health resources during this time.

Bush has become prominent in Autism circles, touting his theories of gut health as the root cause of autism and offering his products as a treatment. Although the idea of the gut’s involvement in autism is under serious investigation there is, as yet no hard scientific evidence to validate his claims. Bush possesses none or he would most definitely be sharing it. At the Autism One conference in Chicago in 2016, Bush made this statement;

Bush explained, using slides of the gut viewed through a microscope as visual aids, how his plant-derived mineral supplement, RESTORE ($49.95 for a one-month supply), strengthens cell membranes in the gut to keep toxins from leaking out. Bush told the parents in the audience that he was “excited to just be a piece of your puzzle” in the parents’ quest to “rebirth that child into a state of health.” 

Bush isn’t the only doctor that’s cashing in on the gullibility of the public and their desire for new-age hocus pocus, but he is by far the slickest. It’s what makes him so appealing, so believable and so dangerous. He is well aware of where the line is, drawn by the FDA in shifting sand, and he ensures he doesn’t step over it. He now regularly shares platforms with proponents of Covid conspiracies and his views on the coronavirus are dangerous.

Bush’s video interviews on Covid, featured on LondonReal, are accompanied by trailers of the movie Plandemic, a falsified load of pseudoscience and nonsense that is now banned from numerous platforms. These associations confirm his position as quackery’s new poster boy. If you’ve got the money, Zach Bush has the answers. Look deep into his eyes and suspend belief.

Let’s examine the claims published on his website about autism. The following quote is lifted directly from his site’s page on the topic.

Autism spectrum disorder has risen in prevalence from 1 in 5000 children in 1975 to 1 in 36 children in 2016, and the rate has been doubling every 3-4 years in the last decade in the US.

And the rate has been doubling every 3-4 years in the last decade in the US. We are on target to experience 1 in 3 children with Autism by 2035, just 16 years away

Complete and utter lies and fabrication, designed to instill fear in you and make you want the solutions and products he sells. It’s textbook deception, practiced by quacks and charlatans across the globe. I hereby issue a direct challenge to Bush to produce statistical data to verify this claim. He cannot.

The only reason there has been an increase in autism diagnosis over the last few years (and Bush is well aware of this) is that guidelines for diagnosing the condition were relaxed. Resultantly, many more people were reclassified as having autism. Deception, misdirection, and lies. Which cup is the ball in! Here’s a screenshot, just in case the page is whitewashed.

Zach Bush uses a mix of science, pseudoscience, and untruths (lies) couched in new age terminology to fool his victims into purchasing his products and seminars. He is a health predator, no matter how you dress him up, and he is an embarrassment to traditional medicine and the healthcare profession in general.

If you have a serious medical condition or are feeling unwell, you need to seek advice from reputable and established practitioners of evidence-based medicine. There is no harm in seeking alternate treatments to supplement a medical regime of treatments if this is done in careful conjunction, and with the knowledge of, your healthcare provider. In and of their own, alternate treatments aren’t going to cure you, and believing they will, can cost you your life.

Supporting Articles

Articles critical of Bush are hard to come by, buried below his domination of Google searches on the topic of, well, Zach Bush. His newly employed marketing agents (2019) have done him proud. It is also a clear indication of how alt-Health now dominates Google’s pages and how simple it is to manipulate appearances. You simply flood the market with new articles.

Publication – C-Ville: Author Melissa Angell, on June 28, 2016. Missing doctors: Patient seeks records after clinic closes Verdict: The caption on the photo gives an indication of how long Bush has been at his game, and how he has refined his earlier techniques.

Dr. Zachary Bush, right, opened alternative clinic Revolution Health Center in Scottsville. Dr. Martin Katz was a partner there, and both told their patients: “You have the power to heal yourself.”

John Robinson

Publication – Provocative Change Works: Author Nick Kemp, July 29, 2020. Open letter to Michael Hall by Richard Bolstad. Verdict: Bush is a quack, uttering pseudoscientific nonsense.

this stuff by Zach Bush is just wacky.“Bush ruined what could have been an interesting talk when he said that microRNA can be transmitted by breathing. He claimed that you can literally go to the gym, do nothing except breathe in the microRNA that others exhale, and benefit because your cells think they worked out. And, in case that wasn’t enough of a stretch, he described how consuming microRNA from “bored” corn grown in a field with “tens of thousands of corn plants” makes us afraid of diversity and directly contributes to racism and mass shootings.”

Publication – Chad Hayes MD: Author Chad Hayes on March 4, 2017. Citations Needed: The curious “science” of integrative medicine. Verdict: A clinical dissection of the rubbish Bush spews by a medical doctor who practices pediatrics. An excellent article well worth reading and many of the other charlatans we highlight are included in this breakdown of a Conference Hayes attended called, “Get Your Life Back NOW!” held in Orlando, FL in 2017, at which Bush spoke.

In addition to poorly executed science, there were a lot of “facts” tossed out at the conference that left me wondering if the speakers were being intentionally dishonest, or if they were just really, really wrong. Chief among these offenders was Zach Bush, MD, who runs the M Clinic and “Intrinsic Health” center in Charlottesville, VA and sells the RESTORE line of supplements.

Bush, who seems to have some difficulty understanding basic concepts of genetics and mathematics, informed the audience that “genetically speaking, humans are pathetically simple.” His rationale for this was that humans have 20,000 genes, while fungi have 2 trillion. I’ll admit my initial ignorance; although 2 trillion seemed high, I didn’t really know how many genes fungi have. But it wasn’t hard to look up. Gene sequencing reveals that fungal genomes are similar in size to our own, at around 10,000-25,000 genes. But what are eight orders of magnitude among friends? Actual numbers aside, Bush further argued that “if microorganisms were the enemy, we’d be dead.” Which of course, many of our species are, having been unable to overcome infections from a dazzling array of microorganisms.

He then told us how amazing it is that the DNA repair enzyme “travels near the speed of light.” Unfortunately, this is even less true. DNA polymerases responsible for DNA repair travel along DNA strands at approximately 10-20 nucleotides per second, each of which is approximately 0.6 nanometers in length. Being as generous as I can, that comes out to 12 nanometers/second. And in that same second, a photon of light travels 300 million meters, or 25,000,000,000,000,000 times farther than the DNA repair enzyme.

Further revealing his ignorance about genetics, Bush informed us that while “scientists call 99% of DNA ‘junk,’” that simply can’t be correct because “there’s no waste in nature.” Bush asserts that what geneticists refer to as “junk DNA” actually codes for microRNA, small strands of RNA that regulate how our genes are expressed. While microRNA does actually exist, and the roles it plays are fascinating, it makes up a relatively small percentage of our genetic code, about 1-5%.

But then, Bush ruined what could have been an interesting talk when he said that microRNA can be transmitted by breathing. He claimed that you can literally go to the gym, do nothing except breathe in the microRNA that others exhale, and benefit because your cells think they worked out. And, in case that wasn’t enough of a stretch, he described how consuming microRNA from “bored” corn grown in a field with “tens of thousands of corn plants” makes us afraid of diversity and directly contributes to racism and mass shootings.

Publication – Fueled by Science: Author Chana Davis, PhD, 2019. Dear Scientific American. Vegetables are Not Toxic. Down with Fake News. Verdict: A damning condemnation of yet more pseudoscience Bush managed to get published in Scientific American. Bush was asked to redraft the article after this complaint. The original still stands and you can compare the misleading statements Bush presents as fact.

Rather than sticking to legitimate scientific sources (e.g. peer-reviewed scientific publications and meta-analyses by national organizations) the authors turn to a food author, a health product pushing salesman (Dr. Zach Bush) and pseudoscience haven Planetary Health (check it out if you want a smoothie that can cure Ebola!).

Zach Bush, MD, 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.

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