The Firebreak’s Filthy Fifteen (Part 1)
2025's Selection of the 15 Worst Health Marketing Scams based on Unfounded Activist Fears
This is a three-part series into how environmental-health activist campaigns are often driven and supported by marketing opportunism. Part One will consider five marketing scams where brands charge consumers extra for completely useless labels that merely amplify disinformation.
One of the common tricks to marketing campaigns is to make consumers feel that if they don’t buy your product, then they are not good, cool or safe. If a brand can build trust in the product as the solution they need while creating a personal relationship with the consumer, then the company or organization can set whatever price the market will bear.
Often distrust in the alternative is even a better motivator. Fear sells and we are constantly bombarded with scare stories to motivate us to buy another (most often more expensive) product or service.
Social media bombards vulnerable individuals with a daily dose of fear that some product they consume is killing us. It could be the microplastics in our shampoo, chemicals in our food, fluoride in our water, or PFAS falling from the sky. The list of fears is endless and the only thing they share is that the scaremongering is unfounded or completely overblown.
The Make America Health Again (MAHA) faction in the US rode to power on this scaremongering tactic. With environmental health claims creating widespread public uncertainty and anxiety, a multi-trillion dollar wellness industry has emerged to provide products, supplements and pure snake oil to meet the needs created by their relentless fear campaigns. Most of these wellness products and supplements are scams to be packaged into solutions to problems that don’t really exist.
The writers at the Firebreak have been trying to shed light on these fearmongering tactics, the media culpability in promoting these scams and the funding mechanisms behind them. What follows is the first five of the 2025 Firebreak Filthy Fifteen, cataloguing 15 of the worst health marketing scams. Many of them are built on an unholy alliance between NGO activists, the rent-seeking media, health gurus, the opportunistic wellness industry and companies selling alternatives.
The first five marketing scams are tied to labels found on products that may give the consumer a positive feeling that their purchase is doing something good for their health and the environment, but it carries an implicit criticism of the alternatives, amplifying the lingering fears from relentless activist campaigns.
1. The Non-GMO Project
The next time you buy salt (preferably pink and mined from the Himalayas), make sure to check the label. You may be reassured if it carries the Non-GMO Project label, even though salt is not an organism, there is no such thing as genetically modified salt and there should be other issues you need to consider as you add unnecessary amounts of sodium to your diet.
There is no health claim connected to the Non-GMO Project label, it is not better for the environment and there is no scrutiny on what the product actually contains. A brand simply paid an organization of activists to use the label and passed the costs onto the consumer. The Non-GMO Project label also reinforces the fear that there are GMOs lurking in your consumer products and, without explaining the risks, if any, it reminds you to be vigilant.
The Non-GMO Project label extends its financial opportunism beyond your kitchen cabinet to include products like kitty litter, homeopathic products and vodka. This scam never gets old.
2. All natural, non-processed food
The term “natural” has always been an emotional marketing hook that sells itself. Nobody wants something that is synthetic, artificial or man-made (this also raises a question of whether we can trust humans) even if the natural alternative is neither more sustainable nor safer. But now “natural” is not enough – the term has added further emotional tags like “pure” and “unprocessed”.
Processing natural foods is seen as a contamination or adulteration of nature’s goodness. The recent surge in demand for raw milk (because we are told that pasteurization destroys the natural goodness in cow’s milk) is a victory of marketing over public safety and common sense. Seed oils, pressed and processed, are perceived as a threat to public health as beef tallow rises in demand.
The bad foods are not just processed, they are now “ultra processed”, and while this new, scarier term is not clearly defined, we are told better alternatives exist (at a price). Any human intervention in the food value chain is now perceived as a brand negative.
The natural label seems to know no boundaries in attracting consumers. Bacteria, germs and mold are natural, so are salmonella, E. coli and viruses, but we seem willing to forego decades of food safety achievements and abandon the use of synthetic preservatives and protective materials to enjoy the pure goodness that nature provides us.
So look for the natural label and remember: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
3. Organic Food
The very concept of “organic” is a marketing construct used to create an arbitrary wedge between conventional agriculture and so-called “traditional” farming methods. All farming was organic until research innovations provided technologies to insure safer food, better yields and improved soil management. The term “organic” does not actually mean anything, but rather, it is identified for what it does not mean.
It does not mean “pesticide-free” as organic farmers also use often untested and more toxic (natural) chemicals.
It does not mean “non-industrial” since many organic farms are quite large and feed into a large value chain.
It does not mean healthier food as tests have shown no nutritional difference (and even greater risks from uncontrolled parasites or bacteria).
It does not mean more sustainable as organic farming practices often use more land, produce lower yields and generate more food waste.
But marketers try to portray organic as all of the above, and use that to justify a higher price while making consumers afraid about the safety of conventionally-grown food.
Meanwhile, the organic marketing movement is beginning to hit a wall. Agroecology, permaculture and regenerative agriculture movements have gathered momentum out of the frustration of the lies and hypocrisy of Big Organic. So the scammers are being out-scammed.
4. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood and paper
Do you remember when your wood and paper had to be FSC certified and we were told to look for the label? WWF is part of the certification process so it must be credible, right? There is also the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, with WWF again as a partner. Such NGOs have a good little group of money spinners there, creating a checklist-based standard that all brands would be expected to pay into (or face critical NGO campaigns). Other NGOs, like Greenpeace, refer to such certification schemes as cons.
It is an honors-based system – the companies or the suppliers down the value chain ticked the boxes but there was very little scrutiny as to whether the standards were actually met (except for the NGO making sure that the fees for the right to use the label were properly paid up). If a brand did contrbute to this little label extortion game, then the NGO might take a closer look at the company’s practices and, well, nobody really wanted that. So what happened to that FSC label? People stopped looking for it when other NGOs like Earthsight and Greenpeace exposed the lax verification processes and corruption within the organization.
Don’t you just love a good NGO cat fight?
5. MSC and Safe Catch Tuna
Your tuna sandwich has been a deep sea marketing opportunity for decades when the public was told a story of the possible risks of over-fishing, wasted bycatch and ocean pollution entering into the food chain. Fortunately, label organizations came out to reassure you that this healthy source of protein could be enjoyed risk-free, but only if you buy a brand with their label on it.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has been certifying tuna that comes from fisheries deemed to be sustainable since 2007. They have been highly criticized for being an ecolabel mill having little impact on the actual sustainability of tuna fisheries while ignoring certain fishing methods. The reality is that the fishing industry has managed its fisheries responsibly and merely use the MSC label as a marketing tool.
Not to be outdone, the Safe Catch Tuna certification business claims that its honor-based label means that all tuna has been tested for mercury levels. This label implies that mercury in tuna is an issue. As Firebreak editor, David Zaruk, previously showed, this claim is tired and baseless.
According to the FDA and EPA’s 2021 joint seafood advisory, the risks of mercury in tuna is extremely low and the benefits from consuming tuna (also for pregnant women) is very high. This though has not stopped the Safe Catch opportunists from trying to convince consumers that their (royalty-paying) tuna brands are safer.
These labelling scams have been significant money spinners. As well as receiving royalties from the sale of their ecolabel on every MSC-certified product (88% of their £30 million average annual revenue), the MSC also declares funding from nine large foundations. More than half of this revenue is spent on staff salaries.
Who actually pays for this largesse? The consumers - those who have been tricked into believing these labels actually mean something.
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The next time you read the packaging in your supermarket, the most important label to check is the price. It is good to know what you are paying for. The other labels often have absolutely nothing to do with product quality, the environment or your health, but rather are feeding an entire ecosystem of activist campaign fundraising and fearmongering.
First they scare you and then they sell you a label to reassure you.
Packaging must provide important product information but in these five cases, marketing scams have provided you with nothing more than disinformation.
Part 2 of the Firebreak’s Filthy Fifteen will look at five chemical marketing scams.