Christiane Northrup is a former obstetrics and gynaecology physician and author who promotes pseudoscientific alternative medicine and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
[5] Northrup was also an assistant clinical professor of OB/GYN at Maine Medical Center for 20 years and is credited with helping promote the women's health movement in the state.
[10] In 2016 Northrup decided to post a vlog every day about what she was grateful for, stating that staying positive can be a difficult discipline but becomes a reward that changes the brain.
[2] She believes that in a previous incarnation, she lived in Atlantis and predicted that December 21, 2020, would be the beginning of the "...Age of Aquarius, delivering the world from evil and allowing us to evolve into a new species, Homo illuminus".
[2] Northrup does not believe in germ theory,[14] and states that the reason college students get sick with illnesses such as meningitis is that they are run down and have a "...shaky first chakra".
[4] Northrup wrote in one of her books and reiterated on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009 that thyroid problems in women "...develop because of an energy blockage in the throat region, the result of a lifetime of 'swallowing' words one is aching to say."
According to Dr. David Cooper, professor of endocrinology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, this is bad advice since the thyroid gland is very sensitive to iodine and it will make hypothyroidism worse.
In the book Northrup supports the idea of "seven emotional centers" that correspond roughly to the seven chakras, and references her belief in astrology, angels, mysticism, feng shui, and Tarot cards.
Medical information is mixed with ideas that are not supported with credible evidence: While providing excellent advice on how to treat insomnia, such as avoiding caffeine and exercising regularly, she adds the recommendation to cover bedroom mirrors at night.
According to feng shui, mirrors enliven a room and increase the energy flow, making people feel unsafe and jumpy at night.
Hall thinks that "MDs who recommend quackery along with legitimate medical advice are arguably more dangerous than outright quacks because people are more likely to take them seriously.
[5] Beginning in the spring of 2020, Northrup began posting messages opposing contact tracing, vaccine development, and masking as efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in addition to her more traditional medical advice.
The videos suggest that vaccines are unnecessary if a person is healthy and will instead "...target specific chromosomes that act as the seat of our empathy", a claim with no scientific basis.
[19][5] Northrup continued using social media to promote disproven theories about COVID throughout 2020: She claimed that Canada was building COVID-19 concentration camps;[8][20] that asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 do not spread the disease; that masks are harmful to the wearer's health; that vaccines against COVID-19 affect women's fertility and menstrual cycles;[21][22] that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump; that global public health leaders created the COVID-19 pandemic to enact genocide and to cull, track and control the human race; and that Ukraine harbours several laboratories producing viruses on an industrial scale.
[5][23] In April 2021, Northrup used her Facebook page to praise Centner Academy in Miami, where some of her grandchildren attended school,[5] for prohibiting teachers who receive COVID-19 vaccinations from being in the classroom.
[5] According to Nathan Bernard and Andy O'Brian in an article for the Mainer titled Dr. No, "[Northrup's] aligned herself with a loose network of crackpots and charlatans who profit off people’s fears, and is promoting their projects and products, along with her own, to her massive online audience using cult-like techniques."
Bernard and O'Brian declare that Northrup has been leading her supporters down the QAnon rabbit hole, talking about the group frequently in her videos and has been a contributor to spreading conspirituality, (a portmanteau of the words conspiracy and spirituality that was coined in 2011).
[25] Northrop emceed conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele's "Arise USA: The Resurrection Tour", which made stops throughout the United States during the summer of 2021 and promoted several QAnon and QAnon-adjacent theories.
[15] Regarding pertussis (whooping cough), she recommends breastfeeding to support a baby's immune system, claiming the vaccine for this disease is not reliable and possibly unnecessary.
According to Susan Wood, a research professor at the School of Public Health at George Washington University, there is no evidence that diet can stop the spread of HPV.
Northrup claims that using thermography, breast cancer can be diagnosed from eight to ten years earlier and produces unambiguous results, reducing further testing.