How a B.C. business scion flipped to hawking supplements and conspiracy theories

In the spring of 2018, Foster Coulson appeared on the cover of BCBusiness magazine wearing a red velvet jacket.

He stood, arms folded, with a group of young entrepreneurs who the magazine declared were "ready to rewrite the rules of business."

At 28, Coulson was about to join his older brother as co-president of his family's multimillion-dollar aerial firefighting business. Within a year, he was jet-setting everywhere from Australia to Bolivia, meeting with government leaders and helping secure big contracts.

But Coulson began to reconsider his priorities after meeting in April 2021 an obscure doctor, Vladimir Zelenko, who had become internet famous for claiming an untested mix of antimalarial drugs and vitamin supplements could help defeat COVID.

That meeting "changed the trajectory of my life," Coulson would later write.

Coulson gradually stepped away from his family's business, eventually starting a vitamin supplement company, investing in a dating site for unvaccinated singles and launching a coffee line for "anti-woke" consumers.

He has since become an important, if little known, player in the movement to bring together the worlds of wellness and far-right politics.

His constantly evolving portfolio of businesses, within a parent company headquartered in the Vancouver area, funds many of the leading online purveyors of medical disinformation, xenophobia and misogyny.

Coulson, though, denies responsibility for the content pumped out by the extremist influencers who advertise his products.

"I don't endorse any viewpoints of others that isolate a specific group of individuals or spread hate," he said repeatedly in an emailed response to a series of questions from CBC News.

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In Coulson's eyes, he is creating "a parallel economy" for consumers who believe their freedom is under threat by censorious elites and corrupt scientists.

"I feel proud that I have been able to create many new Canadian jobs during a time when many Canadians lost their jobs and income streams due to standing up for their own personal beliefs," Coulson said in an email to CBC News.

He did not respond to a follow-up question asking him how many jobs he has created in Canada.

Wellness meets MAGA

In 2021, when Coulson began investing in vitamin supplements, the wellness industry was deeply divided in its response to the pandemic.

The industry, worth an estimated $6 trillion US globally, includes many products and practices, such as yoga, that were once considered fringe but have since been integrated into mainstream health care.

But a segment of the industry is made up of wellness practitioners who are critical of the medical establishment and reject conventional health-care approaches.

As the pandemic forced the closure of their businesses, a vocal segment of these practitioners from crystal healers to sound bathers took to social media to voice their doubts about public health measures and vaccines.

"You had this real uptick in misinformation" coming from wellness influencers, said Derek Beres, a former yoga teacher who co-hosts Conspirituality, a podcast that tracks the crossover between wellness and right-wing conspiracy theories.

WATCH |Conspirituality co-author on wellness influencers spreading misinformation:

How the pandemic helped misinformation spread in the wellness industry

3 days ago

Duration 1:13

Conspirituality co-author Derek Beres describes why misinformation spread within the wellness industry during the pandemic.

Beres says influencers used their social media channels to push vitamin supplements and other homespun remedies to COVID as a way of replacing lost income.

They found a captive audience in right-wing circles that were already fixated on the dangers of a "deep state" and QAnon-inspired conspiracies.

Vladirmir Zelenko, a family doctor to a Hasidic Jewish community in upstate New York, was among the biggest stars to emerge from the merger of the wellness and right-wing conspiracy movements.

Zelenko first gained notoriety online for claiming, with anecdotal evidence from his clinic, that a vitamin cocktail containing the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine had a perfect success rate treating his COVID patients.

Then-president Donald Trump even cited Zelenko's videos when he revealed in May 2020 he was taking the drug.

Several studies soon showed hydroxychloroquine was an ineffective COVID treatment, but Zelenko kept advocating its use at pro-Trump events, where he was also applauded for describing mRNA vaccines as a "poison death shot."

• How vaccine misinformation became entrenched in Canadian politics

In 2021, Zelenko gave up his medical practice and moved to Florida to start a vitamin supplement business bearing his name.

Before his death from cancer in 2022, Zelenko was looking for investors and was introduced to Foster Coulson a young entrepreneur from Port Alberni, B.C.

"I realized within the first 30 seconds that this was somebody that stood up when it was the hardest thing to do," Coulson told Shannon Joy in an interview on her Rumble channel last summer.

"I knew that I needed to work with him. It was just like this higher calling."

Selling debunked treatments

In Coulson's telling of his story, he "walked away from everything" in his pre-pandemic business life to answer this calling.

He took an ownership stake in Zelenko's supplement company and then expanded to include a range of wellness products and services.

He called the new venture The Wellness Company and hired doctors who have been criticized for spreading medical misinformation, such as former Loveline host Dr. Drew Pinsky, to develop and market products.

Coulson defended the reputation of his hires, noting in an email to CBC that "several have testified on various topics of public health in front of the U.S. Congress."

Through a telehealth service, The Wellness Company offers consultations with U.S. doctors willing to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, another drug found to be ineffective against COVID but popular in some right-wing circles in the U.S.

For around $300 US, the company also sells "emergency kits" that contain the drugs.

A guidebook issued with one of the kits says doctors have had "great success" using the drugs as treatments for COVID-19.

Coulson said the company doesn't "market any medications for off-label use," though neither hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin is currently authorized by the FDA as a COVID treatment.

"They are selling something that, according to the best scientific evidence that we have thus far, doesn't work," said Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist in Detroit and the managing editor of Science-Based Medicine, a website that debunks medical disinformation.

"I think the pandemic produced the ultimate business opportunity for the commercialization of anti-vaccine views."

The Wellness Company's Canadian branch was shut down after Health Canada determined last fall it was "selling and advertising unauthorized natural health products and manufacturing health products without the required licences."

On its website, the company indicates that while it won't ship its emergency kits to addresses outside the U.S., it is still willing to ship its non-prescription supplements to Canada.

Marketing fear

Initially, the Zelenko vitamin supplements sold well, bringing in more than $6 million US in monthly revenue, according to a document the company filed in Florida court.

But sales declined sharply by the summer of 2023, when public concerns around COVID had largely subsided amid the widespread uptake of mRNA vaccines.

Coulson's companies were nevertheless using debunked claims about the vaccines to sell their products.

Promotional material, for example, suggested the shots were causing a "genocide" and encouraged customers to use supplements to "purify" their blood.

The Wellness Company was also sponsoring segments on the conspiracy-laden broadcasts of Alex Jones.

Dr. Peter McCullough, The Wellness Company's "chief scientific officer," appeared on the showseveral times claiming mRNA vaccines shed spike proteins that can harm unvaccinated people. This has been widely refuted by experts.

Coulson struck affiliate marketing deals with other big names in the anti-vaccine movement as well, including the actress Roseanne Barr, the writer Naomi Wolfe and Donald Trump Jr., the former president's son, paying them to act as influencers for his products.

"With The Wellness Company's emergency medical kit you'll be empowered to take control of your health," Trump Jr. says when he plugs the company on his show Triggered that streams on Rumble.

In his own media appearances, Coulson too has invoked false claims about the pandemic, such as that it was planned by global elites.

"Another plandemic comes up? No problem. You don't need to be worried about this. We have solutions," Coulson told a podcast in February.

That kind of message can resonate with Americans who feel neglected by the country's for-profit health-care providers, said Mariah Wellman, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies the wellness industry.

"When The Wellness Company can both rile you up about things that you're concerned about and then pull you in and say, 'We can fix all of these problems that we just fed to you,' that's incredibly enticing for folks," Wellman said.

In his email to CBC News, Coulson said he is not involved in the marketing decisions of his companies, adding: "I am personally a believer and advocate in fighting any type of 'fear' narrative, with hope and practical solutions."

WATCH | Marketing freedom and fear in the wellness industry:

Why messages of medical freedom and fear are so appealing

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Communications professor Mariah Wellman discusses how The Wellness Companys advertising strategy uses messages of individualism and medical freedom while also spreading fear.

What we talk about when we talk about purity

Since setting up The Wellness Company, Coulson has continued to expand into other areas where wellness and conspiratorial politics overlap.

Last year, he launched a news website, Vigilant News Network. Its purpose, he said, would be to counter the fear spread by conventional news outlets.

"Every article I have will be backed by facts," Coulson said in an interview with a podcaster in January.

The Vigilant News website, though, largely recirculates medical and political disinformation.

Recent headlines include "Virologist Predicts Imminent 'Tsunami of Death' Among COVID Vaccinated" and "Red Alert: Hunter [Biden] is Steering the United States of America."

In April 2023, Coulson announced he was backing Unjected, a dating site for unvaccinated singles.

The site markets itself by repeating the unfounded claim that COVID vaccines "shed" and can somehow harm people who are unvaccinated.

"It's no different than potentially another sexually transmitted disease where you can go and infect people," Coulson told The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website.

Unjected's users sometimes refer to themselves as "pure bloods." In livestreams, the site's founder, Shelby Hosana, has said unvaccinated people look different because of their unique "level of vibrancy and glowing."

A concern with purity is not uncommon within the wellness industry. It informs many diet fads that stress the need to cleanse the body of toxins.

But it can also be another bridge between the worlds of wellness and far-right politics.

Unjected, for instance, has an affiliate marketing deal with Stew Peters, a podcast host who in recent months has called Hitler a "hero," complained about "the Jews" and questioned whether the Holocaust took place.

WATCH |Medical disinformation expert on 'purity' and anti-vaxx messages:

Anti-vaccine messages about purity

3 days ago

Duration 0:35

Medical disinformation expert Dr. David Gorski describes how old ideas about purity are used today in the anti-vaccination movement.

The concerns about shedding "more than anything else tells me how much the anti-vaccine movement is basically a purity cult," said Gorski.

"It's also, to be honest, kind of a fascist idea."

Coulson said, in his email exchange with CBC News, that he doesn't control how his affiliate companies market their products.

"I personally fight and advocate for all basic human rights," he said.

When Andrew Tate sells your coffee

Coulson's latest venture is a partnership with Rumble, a video platform that has courted right-wing extremists with a pledge never to kick them off the site, no matter what they say.

As part of the $6-million US deal, one of Coulson's companies produces coffee that it brands "anti-woke" and which Rumble creators then flog on their channels.

With 1775 Coffee, a name meant to invoke the American Revolution, Coulson has deepened his affiliation with extremist figures on the far-right.

Its website boasted an endorsement from Laura Loomer, a podcast host and Trump confidant with a history of making racist statements and spreading conspiracy theories.

"Rumble is a free speech platform," Coulson told CBC News. "Rumble manages all advertising placements for creators on its platform. I don't endorse any viewpoints of others that isolate a specific group of individuals or spread hate."

The coffee has also been pushed by Andrew Tate, a social media influencer and self-described misogynist whose fans include adherents of far-right politics. He is facing rape and human trafficking charges in Romania and sexual aggression charges in Britain.

In a February episode of his show, Tate told his viewers they can either drink 1775 Coffee, the show's sponsor, or Nescaf.

"You're gonna end up sucking c--k because you drank Nescaf," Tate says in the video streamed on Rumble.

Far from a liability for his brands, partnerships with extremists with large followings are essential for Coulson's legitimacy among the consumers he is targeting, said Wellman.

"What you're telling consumers by working with Andrew Tate is that you can trust us. If you trust Andrew Tate, you will also trust us," she added.

When asked about Tate's comments, Coulson repeated that he doesn't endorse hateful viewpoints

Rumble expects to sell around $1 million US worth of Coulson's coffee by the end of the fiscal year, according to its August earnings report.

A parallel economy or the 'freedom to grift'

In recent weeks, Coulson has launched several new ventures as part of his partnership with Rumble.

These include Be Naked, a line of vitamin supplements advertised to men who are "proudly masculine" and "fiercely dominant."

Loomer generated headlines in September when, while livestreaming her show, she consumed a handful of Coulson's new "human-grade" dog food supplement.

Another supplement line is pitched at consumers who fear negative health effects from 5G wireless technology "your everyday devices could be making you sick," reads the promotional material though most scientists and regulators maintain 5G devices are safe.

Coulson's companies are among a growing number in the U.S. that cater to consumers whose spending decisions are motivated by a hatred of progressive values and a deep-seated suspicion of the scientific consensus.

Sometimes dubbed the parallel or freedom economy, its entrepreneurs say they are providing financial protection from attempts to censor their views. It's a battle they often frame in existential terms.

"This is one of the most important times in history to fight back, to fight for our freedom and I am doing it through leveraging my experience as an entrepreneur," Coulson said in a January interview with right-wing podcaster Jeff Dornik.

But medical experts, like Gorski, hear something different when the word "freedom" is used in this way.

"What they really mean by freedom is not so much freedom to choose, but rather freedom from pesky government oversight and regulation," he said. "Or as I would sometimes call it, freedomto grift."

'It's the universe that guides us'

Though his businesses mainly operate in the U.S., Coulson still maintains a home in Port Alberni, next to his brother.

His father, Wayne Coulson, has run The Coulson Group since taking over from his father in the 1980s, transforming what was a logging company into a global aerial firefighting operation.

It is one of the largest employers in Port Alberni, with an international reputation that is a source of pride for some locals.

In an email to CBC News, Wayne Coulson distanced the family business from the extremist influencers advertising his son's products.

"Coulson Group has no knowledge or interest in any of the above people or companies," he said when asked about 1775 Coffee, Unjected, Pawsitive and Alex Jones.

Wayne Coulson also told CBC Newsthe Coulson Group has not provided any financial support to his son's companies.

Foster Coulson's name and image were removed from the Coulson Group's website sometime after February, according to archived images of the site.

In an interview earlier this year, Coulson acknowledged the dramatic change his life had taken since the pandemic.

"If this was 2019, I would have never thought I'd be here in a million years," he told Edmonton influencer Kaylor Betts. "It's fate. I do believe it's the universe that guides us and we have to accept and embrace it."