Joseph Mercola

Life and career

Joseph Mercola was born to a teenage mother.

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). 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). 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. Mercola has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show and The Doctors.

Views and controversy

Mercola operates Mercola.com, which he has described as the most popular alternative-health website on the internet. 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. 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. 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. An article in BusinessWeek was critical of his website's aggressive direct-marketing tactics and complained of Mercola's "lack of respect" for his site's visitors, writing:

"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."

Vaccinations

Mercola has been highly critical of vaccines and vaccination policy, claiming that too many vaccines are used too soon during infancy. He hosts anti-vaccination activists on his website, advocates preventive measures rather than vaccination in many cases, and strongly criticizes influenza vaccines. During 2011, he reportedly donated $1 million to organizations that oppose vaccination.

Mercola contends that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, is harmful. Thimerosal is no longer present in most vaccines given to young children in the USA, though it is still present in some vaccines approved for adults. Extensive evidence has accumulated since 1999 showing that this preservative is safe, with the World Health Organization stating in 2006 that "there is no evidence of toxicity in infants, children or adults exposed to thiomersal in vaccines."

In his book The Great Bird Flu Hoax, Mercola appears to take a stronger anti-pharmaceutical industry stance by accusing them of a fear-mongering marketing campaign against the public. In supporting this stance, Mercola often has wholly critical views of those working in governmental health care, as well as towards international health organizations. He argues at length that concern over swine flu and the resulting immunizations were actually false alarms put forth to terrify the public. The World Health Organization reports that by August 1, 2010, about 18,500 deaths have been caused by the H1N1 pandemic influenza.

Other views

Other controversial views Mercola supports include:

Dietary recommendations on food consumption that often put him at odds with mainstream dietary advice such as encouraging the ingestion of unprocessed food, including unrefined coconut oil containing saturated fat in place of polyunsaturated fats.

Advocacy on the labeling and health of genetically modified food.

Claims that microwaving food alters its chemistry, despite consensus that microwaving food does not adversely affect nutrient content compared to conventionally prepared food.

Opposition of homogenization, claiming it leads to xanthine oxidase absorption and oxidative stress, despite scientists considering the belief "tenuous and implausible", stating "Experimental evidence has failed to substantiate, and in many cases has refuted, the xanthine oxidase/plasmalogen depletion hypothesis."

Questioning whether HIV is the cause of AIDS, claiming manifestations of AIDS (including opportunistic infections and death) may be the result of "psychological stress" brought on by the belief that HIV is harmful. The scientific community considers the evidence that HIV causes AIDS conclusive. Mercola.com has also featured positive presentations of the claims of AIDS denialists, a fringe group which denies the existence of AIDS and/or the role of HIV in causing it.

Opposition to U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommendations, such as the use of most prescription drugs and immunizations for managing illness, and instead recommending consumption of unprocessed organic produce, elimination of most sugar and grains from the diet, removing household toxins from cleaning supplies and cosmetics, and energy psychology tools to address emotional challenges while also selling and promoting numerous dietary supplements.

Claiming cancer risks arise from mobile phone radiation, which is pseudoscientific.

Claims that many commercial brands of sunscreen increase, rather than decrease, the likelihood of contracting skin cancer with high UV exposure, and instead advocating the use of natural sunscreens, some of which he markets on his website. This view is not held by mainstream medical science; in 2011, the National Toxicology Program stated that "Protection against photodamage by use of broad-spectrum sunscreens is well-documented as an effective means of reducing total lifetime UV dose and, thereby, preventing or ameliorating the effects of UV radiation on both the appearance and biomechanical properties of the skin."

FDA warning letters

Dr. Joseph 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.

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.

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).

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.