Parasite cleanses are ineffective and harmful – PolitiFact

There is no known cure for herpes, but an Instagram post claims that’s not the case and that a parasite cleanse can do the trick.  “Parasite cleanses” are widely shared on social media, and posts touting the cleanses claim without proof that many health issues, both real and imaginary, stem from parasitic infections.  One Sept. 28 Instagram post claims that parasite cleanses “kill herpes by starving the parasites in the stomach,” and the caption points viewers to a website selling the cleanses and other homeopathic treatments. The video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) The video’s claims are rooted in pseudoscience. A parasitic diseases expert told PolitiFact the cleanses are ineffective and can harm a person’s health.  What are parasites? Parasites are organisms of varying sizes that can infect people and cause disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The three classes of parasites can infect humans through fecal-oral transmission, typically from food or water contaminated with fecal matter; from exposure to a parasite’s eggs or larvae as a result of poor personal hygiene or…
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