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Other controversial views Mercola supports include:
Other controversial views Mercola supports include:
*Dietary recommendations on food consumption that often put him at odds with mainstream dietary advice.<ref name = Entis>{{cite book | pages = [https://books.google.ca/books?id=NLKzbOOzffgC&pg=PA300&#v=onepage&q&f=false 300] | last = Entis | first = P | title = Food safety: old habits, new perspectives | isbn = 1-55581-417-4 | publisher = [[Wiley-Blackwell]] | year = 2007 }}</ref>
*Dietary recommendations on food consumption that often put him at odds with mainstream dietary advice.<ref name = Entis>{{cite book | pages = [https://books.google.ca/books?id=NLKzbOOzffgC&pg=PA300&#v=onepage&q&f=false 300] | last = Entis | first = P | title = Food safety: old habits, new perspectives | isbn = 1-55581-417-4 | publisher = [[Wiley-Blackwell]] | year = 2007 }}</ref>
*Advocacy on the labeling and health of genetically modified food.<ref>The Atlantic [https://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/want-to-know-if-your-food-is-genetically-modified/370812/ Want to Know If Your Food Is Genetically Modified? By Molly Ball MAY 14, 2014]</ref>
*Mercola.com has featured positive presentations of the claims of [[AIDS denialism|AIDS denialists]], a fringe group which denies the role of HIV in causing [[AIDS]].<ref name=ChicagoMag/>
*Mercola.com has featured positive presentations of the claims of [[AIDS denialism|AIDS denialists]], a fringe group which denies the role of HIV in causing [[AIDS]].<ref name=ChicagoMag/>
*Claiming cancer risks arise from [[Mobile phone radiation and health|mobile phone radiation]],<ref>New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/style/could-wearable-computers-be-as-harmful-as-cigarettes.html?_r=0 The Health Concerns in Wearable Tech]</ref> which is pseudoscientific.<ref>Margaret Sullivan on the New York Times' Public Editor's Journal Opinion Pages Blog . March 19, 2015 [http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/a-tech-column-on-wearable-gadgets-draws-fire-as-pseudoscience/ A Tech Column on Wearable Gadgets Draws Fire as ‘Pseudoscience’]</ref>
*Claiming cancer risks arise from [[Mobile phone radiation and health|mobile phone radiation]],<ref>New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/style/could-wearable-computers-be-as-harmful-as-cigarettes.html?_r=0 The Health Concerns in Wearable Tech]</ref> which is pseudoscientific.<ref>Margaret Sullivan on the New York Times' Public Editor's Journal Opinion Pages Blog . March 19, 2015 [http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/a-tech-column-on-wearable-gadgets-draws-fire-as-pseudoscience/ A Tech Column on Wearable Gadgets Draws Fire as ‘Pseudoscience’]</ref>

Revision as of 21:43, 7 December 2018

Joseph M. Mercola
Joseph Mercola, 2009
Born
Joseph Michael Mercola

(1954-07-08) July 8, 1954 (age 69)
Known forMercola.com, an alternative medicine website
Medical career
ProfessionPhysician (DO)
InstitutionsNatural Health Center
Sub-specialtiesNutrition

Joseph Michael Mercola (born 1954) is an alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Web entrepreneur, who markets a variety of controversial dietary supplements and medical devices through his website, Mercola.com.[1] Until 2013,[2] Mercola operated the "Dr. Mercola Natural Health Center" (formerly the "Optimal Wellness Center") in Schaumburg, Illinois.[3] He wrote the books The No-Grain Diet[4] (with Alison Rose Levy) and The Great Bird Flu Hoax. Mercola criticizes many aspects of standard medical practice, such as vaccination and what he views as overuse of prescription drugs and surgery to treat diseases. On his website mercola.com, Mercola and colleagues advocate a number of unproven alternative health notions including homeopathy, and anti-vaccine positions. Mercola is a member of the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons as well as several alternative medicine organizations.[5]

Mercola has been criticized by business, regulatory, medical, and scientific communities. A 2006 BusinessWeek editorial stated his marketing practices relied on "slick promotion, clever use of information, and scare tactics."[3] In 2005, 2006, and 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Mercola and his company that they were making illegal claims of their products' ability to detect, prevent, and treat disease.[6] The medical watchdog site Quackwatch has criticized Mercola for making "unsubstantiated claims [that] clash with those of leading medical and public health organizations and many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements."[6]

Life and career

Mercola is a 1976 graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago and a 1982 graduate of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (now Midwestern University).[7] According to Mercola's website, he is a former Chairman of Family Medicine at St. Alexius Medical Center. He has written two books which have been listed on the New York Times bestseller list: The No-Grain Diet (May 2003) and The Great Bird Flu Hoax (October 2006).[8][9] In the latter book, Mercola dismisses medical concerns over an avian influenza pandemic, asserting that the government, big business, and the mainstream media have conspired to promote the threat of avian flu in order to accrue money and power.[10] Mercola has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show[11] and The Doctors.[12]

Views and controversy

Mercola operates Mercola.com, which he has described as the most popular alternative-health website on the internet.[3] Aside from the main site, it also hosts various blog subsites, like Healthy Pets and Peak Fitness. Traffic counting from Quantcast shows the site receives about 1.9 million novel visitors per month, each returning almost ten times each month; the number of views are roughly equal to those received by the National Institutes of Health.[1] The site and his company, Mercola LLC, brought in roughly $7 million in 2010 through the sale of a variety of alternative medicine treatments and dietary supplements.[1] The site promotes a number of alternative health ideas, including the notion that homeopathy can treat autism, and that vaccinations have hidden detriments to human health.[1] An article in BusinessWeek criticized his website as using aggressive direct-marketing tactics, writing:[3]

Mercola gives the lie to the notion that holistic practitioners tend to be so absorbed in treating patients that they aren't effective businesspeople. While Mercola on his site seeks to identify with this image by distinguishing himself from "all the greed-motivated hype out there in health-care land", he is a master promoter, using every trick of traditional and Internet direct marketing to grow his business ... He is selling health-care products and services, and is calling upon an unfortunate tradition made famous by the old-time snake oil salesmen of the 1800s.

Phyllis Entis, a microbiologist and food safety expert, highlighted Mercola.com as an example of websites "likely to mislead consumers by offering one-sided, incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information."[13]

In 2016, Mercola agreed to pay up to $5.3 million restitution after federal regulators complained that he made false claims about tanning beds that he sold.[14]

Other views

Other controversial views Mercola supports include:

  • Dietary recommendations on food consumption that often put him at odds with mainstream dietary advice.[13]
  • Mercola.com has featured positive presentations of the claims of AIDS denialists, a fringe group which denies the role of HIV in causing AIDS.[1]
  • Claiming cancer risks arise from mobile phone radiation,[15] which is pseudoscientific.[16]

FDA warning letters

Mercola has been the subject of a number of United States Food and Drug Administration warning letters related to his activities:

  • 02/16/2005 - Living Fuel RX(TM) and Coconut Oil Products - For marketing products for a medical use which classifies those products as drugs in violation of 201(g)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.[6][17]
  • 09/21/2006 - Optimal Wellness Center - For both labeling and marketing health supplements for purposes that would render them to be classified as regulated drugs as well as failing to provide adequate directions for use on the label in the event that they were legally sold as drugs.[6][18]
  • 03/11/2011 - Re: Meditherm Med2000 Infrared cameras - Mercola was accused of violating federal law by making claims about the efficacy of certain uses of a telethermographic camera exceeding those approved by the FDA concerning the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the device (regulation of such claims being within the purview of the FDA).[19]
  • 12/16/2011 - Milk Specialties Global - Wautoma - Failure to have tested for purity, strength, identity, and composition his "Dr. Mercola Vitamin K2" and other products.[20]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Smith, Bryan (February 2012). "Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack?". Chicago Mag.
  2. ^ "Dr. Mercola's Natural Health Center". www.natural-health-center.com. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d Gumpert, David (May 23, 2006). "Old-Time Sales Tricks on the Net". BusinessWeek. Archived from the original on July 6, 2009. Retrieved September 1, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Doc's got odd appetite". Chicago Tribune. May 25, 2003. Retrieved August 22, 2011.
  5. ^ "Who Sits at the Clintons' Table, and Who Picks Up the Tab?". Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. 1994-04-01. Retrieved 2011-08-19.
  6. ^ a b c d Barrett, S (2011-05-26). "FDA Orders Dr. Joseph Mercola to Stop Illegal Claims". Quackwatch. Retrieved 2011-08-19.
  7. ^ Mercola, Joseph (2007). "Take Control of Your Health". Mercola.com. Retrieved 16 October 2018. Joseph Mercola was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 8, 1954. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine - Midwestern University.
  8. ^ "Paperback Best Sellers: May 18, 2003, How-to and Miscellaneous: Hardcover". The New York Times. May 18, 2003. Retrieved May 16, 2011.
  9. ^ "Paperback Best Sellers: October 22, 2006". The New York Times. October 22, 2006. Retrieved May 16, 2011.
  10. ^ About 'The Great Bird Flu Hoax'. Google Books.
  11. ^ "The Alternative Health Controversy". The Dr. Oz show.
  12. ^ "Health Investigation: Artificial Sweeteners". The Doctors.
  13. ^ a b Entis, P (2007). Food safety: old habits, new perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 300. ISBN 1-55581-417-4.
  14. ^ "An Anti-Vaxxer's New Crusade". Newyorker.com. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  15. ^ New York Times The Health Concerns in Wearable Tech
  16. ^ Margaret Sullivan on the New York Times' Public Editor's Journal Opinion Pages Blog . March 19, 2015 A Tech Column on Wearable Gadgets Draws Fire as ‘Pseudoscience’
  17. ^ "Ref. No. CL-04-HFS-810-134" ("archived; not necessarily up to date"),fda.gov, February 16, 2005.
  18. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-08-29. Retrieved 2013-10-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)WarningLetters
  19. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-04-22. Retrieved 2013-10-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)WarningLetters
  20. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-09-06. Retrieved 2013-10-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)WarningLetters

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Mercola&diff=prev&oldid=872575579

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