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There are no links in this diary which direct you to any website Mercola profits from. However, just being the subject of a main story on today's New York Times website may end up accruing to his benefit if vaccine doubters who never heard of him look him up. I think he needs to be “called out” in this way but am ambivalent because naming him the chief online spreader of vaccine doubt in a top article in the print New York Times (above) and two sections of their main story online additions (below) certainly gives him a lot of free publicity which he may actually be happy about.
Here are a few excerpts from the article which can be read with a subscription or as one of a limited number of free articles per month if you sign up for that:
Researchers and regulators say Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, creates and profits from misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines.
The article that appeared online on Feb. 9 began with a seemingly innocuous question about the legal definition of vaccines. Then over its next 3,400 words, it declared coronavirus vaccines were “a medical fraud” and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity or stop transmission of the disease.
Instead, the article claimed, the shots “alter your genetic coding, turning you into a viral protein factory that has no off-switch.”
Its assertions were easily disprovable. No matter. Over the next few hours, the article was translated from English into Spanish and Polish. It appeared on dozens of blogs and was picked up by anti-vaccination activists, who repeated the false claims online. The article also made its way to Facebook, where it reached 400,000 people, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool.
The entire effort traced back to one person: Joseph Mercola.
Mercola responded to the Times article as follows:
In an email, Dr. Mercola said it was “quite peculiar to me that I am named as the #1 superspreader of misinformation.” Some of his Facebook posts were only liked by hundreds of people, he said, so he didn’t understand “how the relatively small number of shares could possibly cause such calamity to Biden’s multibillion dollar vaccination campaign.”
The efforts against him are political, Dr. Mercola added, and he accused the White House of “illegal censorship by colluding with social media companies.”
He did not address whether his coronavirus claims were factual. “I am the lead author of a peer reviewed publication regarding vitamin D and the risk of Covid-19 and I have every right to inform the public by sharing my medical research,” he said. He did not identify the publication, and The Times was unable to verify his claim.
The article offers a number of links about Mercola which anybody can read, most notably is this long treatise where Mercola tops the list of 12 with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as number two on a list which includes no other names I’m familiar with.
FTC Providing Full Refunds to Mercola Brand Tanning System Purchasers — 2017 FTC Press release
Unapproved and Misbranded Products Related to Coronavirus Disease: Warning letter from the FDA, in Feb. 2021
The letter begins:
This is to advise you that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed your websites at the Internet addresses https://www.mercola.com and https://www.mercolamarket.com on February 8, 2021. We also reviewed your social media site at https://www.twitter.com/mercola, where you direct consumers to your website https://www.mercolamarket.com to purchase your products. The FDA has observed that your website offers “Liposomal Vitamin C,” “Liposomal Vitamin D3,” and “Quercetin and Pterostilbene Advanced” products for sale in the United States and that these products are intended to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-191 in people. Based on our review, these products are unapproved new drugs sold in violation of section 505(a) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), 2pt1 U.S.C. § 355(a). Furthermore, these products are misbranded drugs under section 502 of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. § 352. The introduction or delivery for introduction of these products into interstate commerce is prohibited under sections 301(a) and (d) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. § 331(a) and (d).
This one, from Chicago Magazine, goes back to 2012: Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack? Americans’ growing interest in alternative medicine has helped turn suburban Chicago doctor Joseph Mercola into one of the most popular voices in natural health. So why does he have so many people riled up?
Not in The NY Times article:
Here’s a recent article from a McGill University publication: The Upside-Down Doctor — Joe Mercola is a doctor at war with medicine. His take on the pandemic is a lucrative, conspiratorial fever dream
“FDA warns Mercola: Stop selling fake COVID remedies and cures” in Alliance for Science
From Quackwatch, one of my favorite websites about medical fraud: Dr. Joseph Mercola Ordered to Stop Illegal Claims provides a more in-depth profile of him than the NY Times article.
