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.

“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.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here