It is axiomatic among quacktivists — anti-vaccine activists, organic food devotees, natural parenting advocates — that our world is filled with toxins.

But toxicophobia, fear of toxins, is really just another form of privilege. Only those in wealthy, industrialized societies who have access to copious food and clean water, and are protected from epidemics of infectious disease have the leisure time and financial resources to indulge in internet fantasies of being poisoned by toxins.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Only the privileged have the leisure time and financial resources to indulge in internet fantasies of being poisoned by toxins.[/pullquote]

Sadly, the people who are at highest risk of actually being poisoned by toxins — industrial toxins, lead in paint and water, or simple environmental pollution — tend to be poor, non-white, and too busy trying to survive to have the time, energy or money to indulge in toxicophobia.

What do privileged toxicophobes believe?

Toxins are everywhere. Sometimes these toxins are named; often they are not. In all cases, though, there is no evidence that anyone is actually being harmed by “toxins,” but, of course, proof is not a requirement in the fantasy world inhabited by devotees of quacktivism.

Vaccines supposedly contain “toxins” that cause autism. (N.B. Toxins always and only cause diseases and syndromes whose etiology is still unknown. No one ever claims that toxins cause strep throat, or sickle cell anemia, or gallstones.) Our food supply is purportedly contaminated by toxins too numerous to even bother mentioning by name. Our water supply is supposedly contaminated by the toxins in pesticides. If that weren’t bad enough, Big Farma now wants to flood our food supply with … genetically modified food. And, of course, all medications produced by Big Pharma have myriad secret and toxic side effects.

Poor people have no patience for this nonsense. Consider Whole Foods Market venture into Detroit.

Amanda Musilli, a white, well off Whole Foods employee, lectured a group of poor, black Detroit residents:

I do want to start this talk about what’s different here, because when comparing prices of things, it’s only fair to compare apples to apples,” Musilli said at the August class, standing at the front of the room. “It’s not a fair comparison to compare our grass-fed, organic beef to factory-farmed beef.” … Musilli listed the ingredients Whole Foods prohibits in food it sells: high fructose corn syrup; artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives; irradiated foods; MSG. Whole Foods’ 365 brand didn’t contain GMOs, either, she added, deftly introducing the store’s private label. “Now I don’t know if you guys know that genetically modified organisms are a concern,” she said. “We can talk about that. By 2018 … every product will be labeled and it’s going to be similar to a cigarette label, that this product may contain genetically modified organisms.”

Participants like Toyoda Ruff seemed unimpressed:

While Ruff wanted her family to eat a healthy diet, she wasn’t buying the premise that lies at the heart of Whole Foods’ ideology and marketing: that organic, non-GMO, and corn-syrup-free foods are inherently healthier than the alternative. When it came to grocery shopping, [she] subscribed to basic nutrition guidelines that haven’t changed much in generations: less fat, sugar, and salt, more fruits and vegetables. “To just go completely organic seems crazy to me,” said Ruff. “If it was a little cheaper, if it was the same price as the other stuff, maybe. But to me, it’s overpriced.” Her usual rule of thumb for determining quality was more pragmatic than the criteria listed by Musilli: “As long as it’s not spoiled, molded, or expired, I’m good with it.”

Food isn’t the only difference. Poor people are not anti-vaxxers. Their children may be behind on their vaccinations because they can’t afford healthcare or couldn’t get to the pediatrician, but not because they fear the vaccines themselves.

Poor people aren’t buying colon cleanses and detoxes; they aren’t spending time steaming their vaginas as recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow. They’re too busy trying to feed and care for their children and themselves.

The ultimate irony is that it is the less privileged who are truly threaten by toxins. Consider the epidemic of lead poisoning as a result of Flint, Michigan’s contaminated water supply. Or contemplate the poor citizens of East Chicago, Indiana where the very soil is contaminated with massive amounts of lead.

Lead is a real poison, with real consequences including the intellectual impairment of children. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of poor children have been harmed whereas no wealthy children have been harmed by the plethora of purported toxins that so agitate their parents.

In truth, toxicophobia is an affectation by which the upper middle class distinguishes itself from the poor. Toxicophobes like to imagine that their effort to avoid toxins marks them as “educated,” when it simply marks them as privileged.