Joseph Mercola (born July 8, 1954) is an US-American osteopathic physician, businessman, author and founder of the alternative medicine-website mercola.com, which markets and sells his health-related products. He is also an Anti-vaccinationist, HIV/Aids-denialist, outspoken critic of the FDA and critic of mainstream medicine, especially the use of most prescription drugs. His business practices are regarded as dubious by various sources and he has been warned by the FDA several times for violating the law by advertising products using false and exaggerated claims. He is criticized his snake-oil salesmen methods, promising costly things for free and scaring visitors with his articles into buying remedies.[1]
Short biography
Mercola graduated in 1976 at the University of Illinois and in 1982 at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine.[2] He started his website Mercola.com in 1997 and it has become (according to him) the most frequently visited natural health website today with over 1.5 million subscribers. Mercola has written several books. Two of them, The No-Grain Diet and The Great Bird Flu Hoax made it to the New York Times bestseller list.
AAPS membership
He is a member of the right-wing, ultra-conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons which likes to rail against such evils as abortion, vaccination and evolution, denies that mankind causes global warming, denies that HIV causes AIDS[3], claims that "gay male lifestyle" reduces life expectancy by 20 years.[4] and many things more. It publishes a journal which is neither peer-reviewed nor regarded as "scientific" at all.[5] Quackwatch lists it as an untrustworthy non-recommended periodical.[6]
Mercola on Food
Mercola advocates basically a so called Palaeolithic diet, consisting mostly of unprocessed foods. He recommends to use coconut oil[7][8][9] and avoiding most fish(due to mercury content), corn, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, sugar and pasteurized/homogenized milk. He advises people with elevated insulin levels (such as diabetics) to avoid all grain products, fruit juices (including fresh-squeezed fruit juices), and canned, packaged or artificial foods.
His dietary advice is criticized, for example studies showed that grain my have a protective effect against type 1 diabetes and a whole-grain diet strongly protects against type 2 diabetes.[10][11]
The American Heart Association states that saturated fats like coconut oil contribute to heart disease and recommends to limit their ingestion[12], a position that is supported by science[13]
Mercola's claims against homogenized milk have been called "tenuous and implausible" by the American Medical Association.
Mercola rants against the use of microwave ovens and claims that they are hazardous[14] and recommends to buy his "Aroma's Turbo Oven" instead which miraculously protects the nutritional value of the food.[15] His claims are totally bogus as various scientific papers show. Due to the short heating time in microwave ovens nutrient content is actually preserved and not destroyed.[16][17]
Other Claims
Mercola promotes various pseudoscientific ideas on his website, that HIV is not the cause for AIDS[18], that sunscreen increases the likelihood of skin cancer[19], that vaccines are dangerous[20][21] and that prescription drugs are harmful and should be avoided[22][23]
He claims in his book "The Great Bird Flu Hoax" that the warnings about H1N1 flu were just false alarms and that the swine flu is quite harmless. He says that can avoid it by some simple measurements, like optimizing vitamin D levels, avoiding sugar and processed food, take krill oil, use all-natural antibiotics like olive leaf extract and oil of oregano.[24] All things Mercola sells through his website. And swine flu is not harmless, the World Health Organization has confirmed more than 18,000 deaths by H1N1 till August 2010.[25]
Mercola also claims that medicine kills more people than it saves in a article series called Death by Medicine.[26][27] Among the authors of the Death by Medicine series are dubious writers like Gary Null (dubious credentials, dubious products) and Carolyn Dean (defrocked 1995 because of "disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct").[28][29] The articles are full of false science, wrong claims and fallacies.[30]
Versions of this article in other languages
- Deutsch: Joseph Mercola
References
- ↑ Old-Time Sales Tricks on the Net, Business Week, May 23 2006
- ↑ My education, mercola.com
- ↑ Questioning HIV/AIDS: Morally Reprehensible or Scientifically Warranted?, by Henry Bauer. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 2007: Vol 12, No. 4
- ↑ Homosexuality: Some Neglected Considerations, by Nathaniel S. Lehrman, MD., Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10, Number 3 (Fall 2005)
- ↑ The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons: Medical "science" as dubious as it gets, Orac at scienceblogs.com
- ↑ Nonrecommended Periodicals, Barrett, Stephen, MD, Quackwatch. September 15, 2008
- ↑ Low-Fat Diet Myths and the Advantages of Coconut Oil, Part I mercola.com, July 14 2004
- ↑ [http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/07/17/coconut-oil-part-five.aspx Low-Fat Diet Myths and the Advantages of Coconut Oil, Part II , mercola.com, July 17 2004
- ↑ [http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/07/21/coconut-oil-part-six.aspx Low-Fat Diet Myths and the Advantages of Coconut Oil, Part III , mercola.com, July 21 2004
- ↑ Cereal grains, legumes and diabetes, Venn BJ, Mann JI , European Journal of Clinical Nutrition(November 2004)
- ↑ Nutritional factors and worldwide incidence of childhood type 1 diabetes, Muntoni S, Cocco P, Aru G, Cucca F, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (June 2000)
- ↑ Saturated Fats, American Heart Association
- ↑ Saturated fat, carbohydrate, and cardiovascular disease, Siri-Tarino PW, Sun Q, Hu FB, Krauss RM American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (March 2010)
- ↑ The Proven Dangers of Microwaves, mercola.com
- ↑ Mercola Turbo Oven
- ↑ The effect of microwaves on nutrient value of foods, Cross GA, Fung DY Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (1982)
- ↑ Effects of microwave cooking/reheating on nutrients and food systems: a review of recent studies, Hoffman CJ, Zabik ME, Journal of American Diet Association (August 1985)
- ↑ HIV Does Not Cause AIDS, mercola.com, September 05 2001
- ↑ The Sunscreen Myth: How Sunscreen Products Actually Promote Cancer, mercola.com, June 19 2007
- ↑ http://vaccines.mercola.com/
- ↑ Don’t Let Your Child Be the Next Victim of This Deadly Vaccine, mercola.com, April 05 2011
- ↑ How to Solve Nearly Any Illness - Without Drugs, mercola.com, January 11 2011
- ↑ 7 Drugs That Can Kill Children with a Single Pill, mercola.com, April 06 2010
- ↑ Major Expose on Swine Flu by 60 Minutes , mercola.com, July 16 2009
- ↑ Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 112
- ↑ Death by Medicine, Part I, mercola.com, November 26 2003
- ↑ Nearly 250,000 Deaths From ONE Common Mistake: Here's How to Protect Yourself, mercola.com, February 04 2011
- ↑ Disciplinary Action against Carolyn Dean, M.D., Casewatch
- ↑ The Quack-Files: Death by Medicine, by Harriet Hall, MD
- ↑ Science-Based Medicine on "Death by Medicine"