Imprisoned fraudster has become 'a perfect martyr' for the MAHA movement: analysis

The Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has aligned itself with convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is currently serving 11 years in prison for defrauding investors in her blood testing technology of hundreds of millions of dollars, Politico reports.

Holmes, who is in the same cushy federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas as convicted sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein cohort Ghislaine Maxwell, has been embraced by MAHA enthusiasts who call her a "deeply misunderstood character," Politico says.

“My crew joked that if Holmes emerged today, she would be counted among the innovators MAHA endorses," writes mommy blogger-turned-MAHA-influencer Jessica Reed Kraus, who defends Holmes in her Substack post, "Elizabeth Holmes’ Redemption Arc Loading."

Holmes, Politico says, has "welcomed the affection from prison," calling Kraus's post "a beautifully written article" on her personal X account that she is free to access from her confines.

"When Kraus polled her readers in May on whether they thought Holmes’ prison sentence was fair, 81 percent answered no," Politico says.

Holmes also banters on X with MAHA enthuisast, entrepreneur and longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson who has given Holmes a diet plan for prisoners, Politico writes.

"The driving philosophies behind both MAHA and the disgraced Theranos founder are well aligned," Politico notes.

Benjamin Mazer, a pathologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins who has written about both Holmes and the MAHA movement separately, agrees.

“She was very big in positioning herself as an anti-establishment figure,” Mazer says. "The large lab companies were the bad guy, and then she’s the outsider, small player who is going to overtake the establishment. That fits in with [MAHA].”

Kraus says that, despite the common idea that Holmes’ downfall was caused by “a faulty machine,” she “found another (more practical angle) that framed Holmes as a catastrophic threat to a trillion-dollar industry controlled by conglomerates, with masked Pfizer interests looming.”

"For those who believe the health system is controlled by a conspiracy of major corporations, Holmes is a victim of Big Pharma," Politico notes.

Kathryn Olivarius, a historian at Stanford University who is currently writing a book on the MAHA movement, agrees.

“She’s such a perfect martyr for this. It feels almost inevitable that this would happen,” Olivarius tells Politico. “There’s something in her story for everyone in this movement… You can always frame it so that you know she’s somehow being victimized here.”

Politico says that Holmes’ effort to cultivate her relationship with MAHA may just be beginning.

"A few days after her shoutout for Kraus’ article, Holmes posted a reply to a now deleted comment on X and wrote about RFK Jr. for what appears to be the first time. Holmes’ characterization of the MAHA leader?" Politico asks.

“Urgently fortunately we have RFK who is willing to question existing narratives and is not on the take," Holmes posted on X.