'Toxic Nation': Wellness, Warnings, and War on Modern Medicine

The newly-released MAHA Commission Report may have garnered headlines in the legacy media, but the lobbying arm of MAHA, MAHA Action, has partnered with a film company to produce the first of four movies, Toxic Nation. While I suspect that we won't have a Rotten Tomatoes review for some time, I did spend nearly two hours watching, and this is a report for those of you who might feel it was too long: didn’t watch (TL: DW). For those interested in fact-checking me or the movie or simply having a few hours to kill, it can be found here. [1]

Toxic Nation presents a slick, well-produced critique of modern health and wellness, arguing that a dramatic rise in chronic disease is linked not to genetics or infectious disease but to environmental toxins, processed foods, and systemic regulatory failures. It traces the explosion of chronic conditions—to a convergence of chemical exposure, bioaccumulation, and degraded food quality. The film claims that additives, seed oils, and glyphosate have disrupted human health at the cellular level, weakening metabolism, altering gut barriers, and inflaming the body, all while regulatory bodies prioritize pharmaceutical profits over prevention. From fluoride in drinking water to electromagnetic radiation and indoor mold, the film paints a picture of constant, low-level exposure to toxins that accumulate over time. 

Viewers are encouraged to reclaim their agency by adopting healthier habits, such as eating cleaner, avoiding industrial seed oils, filtering their environments, and shifting toward holistic and ancestral health practices. Ultimately, Toxic Nation calls for a wellness movement rooted in personal responsibility, environmental awareness, and systemic reform.

The Garden – a tale retold

Toxic Nation's greatest strength comes from the retelling of our original fall from grace, our banishment from the Garden of Eden, those many eons ago. It begins with Secretary Kennedy noting that in the 1950s, only 6% of us had a chronic illness; today, over half do. As with other retellings, a “paradise” exists just outside living memory, in this instance, roughly 80 years ago. [2] The role of the snake is played by two entwined Bigs, Food and Pharma.

For the MAHA faithful, it delivers a wake-up call to a society sleepwalking through a chronic disease epidemic fueled by toxic exposures, nutrient-poor processed foods, and institutional betrayal. It invokes powerful testimony from a cast, including 

• MAHA Action CEO Del Bigtree, film producer, CEO of the “anti-vax” Informed Consent Action Network, and communication director for RFK, Jrs. Presidential campaign
• Calley Means, the quieter of the two Means siblings, co-author of Good Energy with his sister, Surgeon General Nominee Casey Means, and current HHS Special Government employee
• Vani Hari, the Food Babe
• Sayer Ji, founder of alternative medicine portal GreenMedInfo and CEO of the Global Wellness Forum, believes “that all the problems of our life whether emotional or intellectual, physical or spiritual, social or environmental have their roots in an unhealthy mindset which is composed of ill thoughts, ideas, impressions, lessons and experiences accumulated from family, institutions, and socio-political environment.”
• Dr. Dan Pompa, author, former chiropractor, and now leading functional medicine practitioner
• Dr. Cate Shanahan, author and “family medicine medical doctor, and an expert in human nutrition and the biochemistry of processed food metabolism.” She argues that seed oils are a critical nutrient in our ill health
• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

It is interesting to note that all of them have come to their MAHA views after personal, deleterious experiences with our health system. They all bear witness. Toxic Nation connects the dots of a narrative that links environmental degradation to the breakdown in personal health, calling for a cultural revolution where individuals reclaim their health, “detox” their lives, and restore harmony with nature.

Toxic Nation is strongest in weaving an emotionally charged narrative, using word choice and images to explain nearly every modern health problem on a web of shadowy conspiracies, environmental toxins, and dietary villains. The tale of the Garden of Eden is echoed throughout Toxic Nation:

• Seed oils are repeatedly found to be harmful because they are rancid – spoiled, just as we were when taking a bite of that apple.
• Monsanto, the Devil behind the toxin Agent Orange, brings us a new wonder chemical for our food, Roundup, which, as Secretary Kennedy showed as an attorney, caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bayer, which went on to purchase Monsanto and Roundup, makes treatments for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – earning money in the process of both causing and then treating the disease.
• Petroleum, a sulfurous substance removed from deep within the bowels of the Earth, is the source of food coloring used to entice our children to eat toxic foods – to take their bite of the apple.
• Like the science it challenges, it is not above making hyperbolic claims; in one scene, comparing eating one French fry to the health impacts of smoking a cigarette.  

Toxic Nation advocates for personal autonomy, encouraging skepticism of public health institutions and conventional medicine, freely embracing a return to the Garden through intuition and personal “truth.” Chronic illness, our casting out from the Garden, is not due to our choices of lifestyle and other social determinants but to a vast collaboration between federal agencies in thrall to Big Pharma and Big Food. The Devil made us do it. 

There is often a kernel of truth in what is being said. Regulatory capture of our federal institutions is a real concern, but replacing Big Pharma and Big Food with influencers with similar financial agendas is not a viable solution. Toxic Nation, like the tale of Eden, provides more ideology than evidence and, like all good parables, oversimplifies by pulling on our emotional strings rather than appealing to less evocative analysis and nuance. 

It is essential to know your enemies if for no other reason than it will strengthen your arguments. Toxic Nation may frustrate some with its sweeping generalizations, emotive storytelling, and thin evidentiary scaffolding. Still, it also reveals the contours of a growing movement that merges distrust in institutions with a desire for health sovereignty. The film gives voice to a rising cultural sentiment: that wellness is no longer just about what you eat but who you trust. Trading the white coat for the wellness influencer’s ring light doesn’t protect us from manipulation; it just changes the branding. In an era of fragmented truth and growing skepticism, understanding the longstanding narrative power of our cultural myths to resonate and shape is vital — not to convert or condemn, but to better navigate the complex terrain of health, science, and belief.

[1] Using that link should help you avoid having to provide your email address and the numerous notifications that will likely follow. 

[2] For fans of the concept of historical cycles, that time frame coincides with four generations and reflects the idea of the Fourth Turning