Joseph Mercola

Joseph Mercola is among the top misinformation vectors of our time when it comes to health, medicine, food, parenting, and more. He promotes chemophobia and spreads fear of chemicals, GMOs, and vaccines, all while peddling alternatives to line his pockets.

Joseph Mercola is an American anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist, pseudoscience promoter and absolute quack, best known for making false and misleading health claims. Mercola, an osteopathic physician, is a popular guru of alternative medicine and naturopathy. He is a member of the right-wing quack outfit Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Mercola advocates and provides a forum for many classic crank medical ideas, such as vaccine hysteria and the belief that modern (sorry, "allopathic") medicine kills more people than it helps. His website is a veritable spring of pseudoscience, quackery, and logical fallacies. He is also a promoter of the idea of an AMA/Big Pharma/FDA conspiracy.

Despite his claim that unlike other doctors, he is not interested in profit, he advertises all manner of unproven products, and has a health center that dispenses alternative medicine for a steep price.

Mercola funds 40% of the budget of the anti-vaccination National Vaccine Information Center's budget. He had previously promoted the false idea that Vitamin C and Vitamin D could prevent measles, and not coincidentally his top sales products are supplements.

Issues
In addition to the aforementioned issues, Mercola promotes various disproved crank health ideas such as:
 * Toxic metals in vaccines and dental fillings. The idea of heavy metal poisoning as being responsible for many common health problems is a popular one, and completely wrong. The studies of mercury in dental amalgams and vaccines are conclusive – there is no danger (which is more than can be said for the unnecessary chelation therapy that quacks prescribe to fix the "problem").
 * Statin denialism, Mercola claims that statins are harmful and that 99% of people do not need them. He says they cause birth defects if taken during pregnancy and increase the risk of diseases. This one is particularly horrible, as few medications or interventions have been found to be as safe and effective as statins. Failing to prescribe a statin to someone with coronary artery disease is very much against the standard of care (meaning that it could be construed as malpractice).
 * Microwaves "kill nutrients in food." No more than ovens do.
 * Modern medicine kills you dead, but homeopathy works! (Fractal wrongness).
 * HIV doesn't cause AIDS and death from HIV is due to the "psychological stress" of having the condition. But he has a cure!
 * GMOs are every bit as harmful as excessive sugar and processed food.
 * Eyeglasses denial, which is as pointless and harmful as it sounds.
 * Seriously, just pick a scientifically unsupported concern out of a hat, anything from aspartame to water fluoridation.
 * Magnesium woo, he is supportive of the crackpot ideas of Carolyn Dean.

COVID-19
In March 2021, the published a list of twelve individuals entitled the "disinformation dozen", e.g. the individuals most responsible for spreading anti-vaccination misinformation online. Topping the list was Joseph Mercola, who by July 2021 had published more than 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on COVID-19 vaccines since the start of the pandemic.

On April 29, 2021, Mercola published a book entitled The Truth About COVID-19, in collaboration with noted medical woo pusher Ronnie Cummings, and with a forward from notable anti-vaccination pusher Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Depressingly, on July 24 2021, this book was listed as the #1 best seller in the Kindle "Preventive Medicine" category on, in spite of the book being a massive pile of bullshit conspiracy theories mixed in with unproven and disproven "treatments" (that happen to coincide with some of the supplements that Mercola sells). Mercola also endorsed (via an Amazon editorial review) a "behind-the-scenes" novelized account of the bullshit non-documentary Plandemic. .

In a win for science, On September 29, 2021, Mercola (along with Kennedy) was booted off YouTube for being a prominent spreader of anti-vaccination bullshit.

Trouble with regulatory committees
Mercola has received two warnings from the FDA for hyping coconut oil, chlorella, and the Living Fuel RxTM diet. He received a third warning for selling infrared cameras that he claimed could be used to diagnose a number of illnesses.

On February 18, 2021, Mercola received yet another warning from the FDA. This time, the warning was for Mercola promoting vitamin C and vitamin D as a COVID-19 cure on his supplements website, as well as promoting (a  that, like the aforementioned vitamins, is present in many fruits and vegetables) as a cure for COVID-19. (The quercetin-cures-COVID bullshit claim, uncoincidentally, happens to also be promoted in Mercola's depressingly best-selling Truth About COVID-19 book).

In addition, in April 2016, Mercola was forced to settle with the for false advertising, due to Mercola selling tanning beds that he claimed not only didn't cause cancer, but somehow actively reduced the chances of getting it. Because this claim was 100% bullshit, Mercola was forced to pay refunds to his customers and leave the tanning bed business.

This all came to a head in August 2021, when Mercola announced that he'd be wiping much of his old article archives and deleting new articles after a 48-hour period, claiming that President Biden had "targeted [him] as his primary obstacle that must be removed."

Birds of a feather…
In what can only be termed a alternative medicine practitioner group hug, Mercola has recently come to the defense of the Burzynski Clinic despite the obvious pitfalls of doing so.