NaturalNews



I still don't know whether Adams really and truly believes in the nonsense he promotes. I really don't and still can't tell. For example, did Adams relocate to Ecuador because he really believes in the "natural" lifestyle or did he do it to escape those pesky laws in the U.S. that frown on selling unproven remedies? I do know, however, that Adams appears to have an utter contempt for his own readers, as evidenced by his repeating outrageous straw men such as the claim that SBM says that susceptibility to disease is totally random and that there's nothing anyone can do about it and bizarre falsehoods like his claim in the Vaccine Zombie video above that vaccines can make your testicles fall off.

NaturalNews.com and its sister sites are run by Michael Allen "Mike" Adams, B.S. (self-labeled "The Health Ranger") which promotes alternative medicine and related conspiracy theories. The site particularly specializes in vaccine denial and the alleged vaccines-autism link,Vaccine denial and woo: AIDS/HIV denialism, AIDS/HIV denialism: quack cancer treatments,Quack cancer treatments: and conspiracy theories about "Big Pharma". If there's an alternative medicine or alternative medical treatment out there, you can guarantee that NaturalNews has one article singing its praises to the sky and one more bashing the stupid "skeptics". A lot of the website's growth is due to its exposure on Facebook, where it had over 3.5 million followers until it was banned (not for any of its content, mind you, but because it was violating Facebook's policy on spamming).
 * Depopulation test run? 75% of children who received vaccines in Mexican town now dead or hospitalized by Mike Adams (May 11, 2015) NaturalNews 9archived from May 11, 2015).
 * Rebuttal: No, "vaccine reactions" didn't kill several children in Mexico by David Gorski (May 14, 2015) ScienceBlogs.
 * Thousands of Americans died from H1N1 even after receiving vaccine shots by Mike Adams (January 17, 2010) NaturalNews (archived from January 19, 2010).
 * Vaccinated children have up to 500% more disease than unvaccinated children by PF Louis (June 19, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from June 20, 2012).
 * What's really in vaccines? Proof of MSG, formaldehyde, aluminum and mercury by Mike Adams (October 24, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from October 25, 2012).
 * Flu epidemic strikes millions of Americans already vaccinated against the flu by Mike Adams (January 11, 2013) NaturalNews (archived from January 13, 2013).
 * 800 more children permanently harmed by vaccines by Ethan A. Huff (February 15, 2013) NaturalNews (archived from February 18, 2013).
 * Secret government documents reveal vaccines to be a total hoax by Ethan A. Huff (January 08, 2013) NaturalNews (archived from January 9, 2013).
 * Baby receives cocktail of seven vaccines, loses ability to speak, recovers with homeopathic shock remedies (April 03, 2012) Healthy Times Newspaper via NaturalNews (archived from April 3, 2012).
 * Myth busted: Vaccinations are not immunizations by Craig Stellpflug (May 15, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from May 17, 2012).
 * Vaccine Zombie by Michael Adams (archived from May 31, 2012).
 * CDC lies: Measles outbreaks confirmed among children already vaccinated by Jonathan Benson (January 13, 2015) NaturalNews (archived from January 26, 2015).
 * Shocking truth about AIDS exposed on World AIDS Day with "House of Numbers" un-cut footage by Mike Adams (December 01, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from December 2, 2009).
 * AIDS: The great medical con by David Icke] (January 12, 2010) NaturalNews (archived from January 15, 2010).
 * The AIDS myth exposed: Why experts are challenging conventional AIDS mythology by Mike Adams (October 29, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from July 27, 2010).
 * AIDS fraud: The Marketing of an Epidemic exposed in House of Numbers exclusive film clip by Mike Adams (May 03, 2010) NaturalNews (archived from May 4, 2010).
 * Are AIDS / HIV tests a hoax? Documentary footage features conversations with Drs. Niel Constantine and Robin Weiss by Mike Adams (January 07, 2010) NaturalNews (archived from August 21, 2010).
 * AIDS Fraud Exposed: HIV Science Papers from 1984 were Falsified by Mike Adams (January 5, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from January 7, 2009).
 * Breakthrough documentary "House of Numbers" challenges conventional thinking on HIV, AIDS by Mike Adams (October 29, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from May 14, 2010).
 * All conventional prostate cancer treatments harm quality of life by David Gutierrez (October 02, 2010) NaturalNews (archived from October 6, 2010).
 * Bicarbonate of Soda Used to Cure Stage Four Prostate Cancer by Paul Fassa (November 13, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from November 16, 2009).
 * Simple cancer remedies that can give you a fighting chance by Veronique Desaulniers (July 13, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from July 14, 2012).
 * Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism (Book Excerpt) by Andreas Moritz (February 01, 2008) NaturalNews (archived from January 26, 2011).
 * Breast Cancer Deception by Mike Adams, NaturalNews (archived from April 10, 2008).
 * Cancer industry trying to co-opt most recent potential natural cure - frankincense by Paul Fassa (March 20, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from March 21, 2012).
 * Natural lemon extract is cytotoxic to breast cancer cells by Ethan Evers (December 06, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from January 27, 2013).
 * Curcumin slays cancer cells in their tracks by PF Louis (November 08, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from November 10, 2012).
 * Top healing foods that stop ovarian cancer in its tracks by Carolanne Wright (November 13, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from November 15, 2012).
 * How cancer feeds on sugar (and other big reasons to avoid refined sweets) by J. D. Heyes (November 23, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from November 27, 2012).
 * Proven to kill cancer cells without destroying your immune system by Ben (September 16, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from September 18, 2012).
 * Proof that the cancer industry doesn't want a cure - even if it's a pharmaceutical by PF Louis (January 31, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from January 31, 2012).
 * Chaparral is natural medicine for treating cancer by Mike Adams (October 15, 2009) NaturalNews (archived from July 10, 2010).
 * A common vegetable cures skin cancer by Paul Fassa (April 05, 2012) NaturalNews (archived from April 10, 2012).

Reviewing NaturalNews' vast ecosystem of websites shows that Adams has way too much money and spare time and wants to attract both left-wing moonbats interested in a "natural" lifestyle and right-wing wingnuts interested in guns and survivalism. Reading through Adams' discourse on a non-NaturalNews affiliated goldbug forum shows that Adams's personal allegiances are mainly with the latter, which taken in totality indicates some level of disingenuousness since he's grifting both ends but only sympathizes with one end enough to speak frankly.

On Wikipedia, NaturalNews is not merely a deprecated source, never to be used for anything ("There is a near-unanimous consensus that the site repeatedly publishes false or fabricated information, including a large number of conspiracy theories."), but is actually on the spam blacklist.

In short: if you cite NaturalNews on any matter whatsoever, you are almost certainly wrong, as this website is so bad, so unreliable, and so dead-faced wrong that even other quacks think it's a quack site, a feat of stupid that truly takes talent.

Personal and corporate
By his own account, Adams was "the son of a Pfizer contractor and a clinical trial tester for some of America's biggest pharmaceutical companies." According to Adams, he "was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a disease brought on by poor diet and severe lack of exercise." Rather than blame himself for not listening to evidence-based medicine that one should eat a balanced diet and get regular exercise, he instead blamed evidence-based medicine and began his lucrative career of peddling snake oil.

Prior to his diabetes diagnosis, Adams founded Arial Software in 1993, which he sold in interest in by 2007. The company had been characterized as marketing spamware in the guise of advising spammers as to create marketing emails that did not look like spam.

He is married to Sheh Lio Adams, an acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, with whom he co-owns a shitload of front companies:

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Other co-owners include Cynthia M. Rankin, Cole Bormuth, Ian Lee, Dona C. Copland, and Shuyin Wu.

Health beliefs
Adams is a flat-out opponent of modern medicine, and opposes any long-term medication or doctor visits; Adams calls himself a "holistic nutritionist". In short, Adams opposes:

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A recurring theme is the contrast between the site's exacting criticism of evidence-based medicine and its unquestioning acceptance of the appeal to nature, New Age and alternative medicine. (Adams himself supports both quantum healing and quantum consciousness. ) This often involves rejection of the scientific method's application to medicine as "inherently flawed", repudiating the entire philosophy of modern medicine post-Pasteur. Adams is a firm germ theory denialist. Adams also conflates evidence-based medicine in general, the failings of Big Pharma, and the US health insurance system: to him, it's all a monolithic entity called "mainstream medicine". NaturalNews blames the pharmaceutical industry for all vaguely drug-linked celebrity deaths rather than looking at any surrounding factors.

The response to any alternative medicine claim, however, is blind acceptance, whether the topic at hand is homeopathy, chiropractic, dental woo, aspartame scares, vitamin woo, anti-vaccination panic (including spreading malicious fabrications about COVID and ), or detox diets.

Vaccines
Adams has argued that "detoxing" after vaccination will let you avoid their bad effects:

Yet surely this would mean that he would be OK with compulsory vaccination if the government just handed out free detox afterward.

Conspiracy theories
NaturalNews also features many Big Pharma conspiracy theories, believing that there is no depth Big Pharma will not sink to, no lie too big for them to tell, in order to poison Americans and cover up their "junk science." Adams claims that the pharmaceutical industry is creating HIV vaccines with the sole purpose of creating as many HIV positive people as possible to sell anti-retroviral drugs to at a huge profit. Mammographic screening creates cancer, which is then expensively treated for big profit. He considers that chemotherapy warrants criminal prosecution.

More recent conspiracy theories claim that Bill Gates and Microsoft are in the process of developing weaponized, ethnically-targeted influenza viruses as part of a sinister eugenics plot. No, really. Adams also manages to misinterpret attempts to develop reversible forms of male contraceptives as deliberate attempts to permanently sterilize minorities.

His reaction to Angelina Jolie's preventive double mastectomy due to having the BRCA1 gene mutation was predictable: the quoted 87% probability that she would come down with breast cancer was irrelevant, since diet and lifestyle changes can magically suppress BRCA1 expression. And of course, oncologists are cast as the quacks here, not fine, upstanding people like Adams.

The site has also claimed that "the UK government is run by criminal pedophiles who rely on Muslim pedo networks to provide a steady supply of nine and ten-year-old little girls and boys". Because that's the only possible reason they'd try and stop Tommy Robinson from promoting hate and disrupting criminal trials.

Other woo
Adams' love for woo isn't restricted to medicine. Cold fusion and so-called free energy ideas and devices like the Energy Catalyzer are presented on his website with the same enthusiasm as the latest alternative medicine fad. He collects news about chemtrails. He is a 9/11 truther, Birther, and pretty much everything else-er, as well as a Sandy Hook denialist. He considers Alex Jones Jeff Rense, and David Icke to be "REAL heroes", and Icke and whale.to to be reliable sources. Curiously, he supports Ron Paul, a real medical doctor and not a practitioner of woo (in the field of medicine); this may be because Paul supports "health freedom", despite Adams simultaneously supporting health care reform and Cuba's health care system.

NaturalNews advances a hard green position, even though the site also promotes global warming denialism. To top it off, Adams promotes conspiracy theories about gun control.

He thinks Scientology is treated unfairly because of attempts by anti-religious bigots and (you guessed it) Big Pharma to oppress their belief system in order to protect their profits.

As well as Sandy Hook, Adams has also issued his informed opinion of the 2012 Aurora shooting, declaring that they were "obviously" staged, or perhaps that the killer James Holmes was involved in "experimental" neuroscience that got out of hand. (Or maybe both at once? Who knows with this guy?) Furthermore, he says the 2013 Boston bombings were a false flag operation by "private military contractors".

In 2014, Adams wrote several articles where he tried to prove that the Malaysian airplane disaster in March 2014 was a government cover-up, and that the plane was secretly made into a "stealth weapon", possibly carrying nuclear weapons. He also stated that he believed that the people behind the cover-up could go as far as to "secretly sink some aircraft debris in the Indian Ocean so they can "find it"." Even though he believed the passengers might have survived, he stated that "world governments are rolling out their 'official' stories, there is no question in my mind that they will do anything to support those official stories, even if it means discarding the lives of all the passengers."

The site also tends to predict that any sizable storm heralds the collapse of the economy and the end of civilization.

Also, "conventional physics" is a conspiracy of the same sort as conventional medicine.

Also transphobia, even though transgender people are trying to change the pigeonhole that conventional medicine assigned them at birth.

Additionally, they promote the conspiracy theory that the Coronavirus was created in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The site claims that microwaves cause infertility, and it promoted a quack detoxification process in light of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Unsurprisingly, the site hates 5G and claims that it is an assault weapon ment to destroy humanity.

Birtherism
In 2011, NaturalNews embraced birtherism, asserting that then-President Barack Obama's birth certificate was fake:

Adams took this as the ideal opportunity for a piece of truly biting social commentary about the fakeness of modern American life:

Between 2011 and 2014, Adams decided that having this post up was rather damaging. But if he just deleted it or at least took a shred of responsibility for it, that would also be embarrassing. Instead, the post was updated with a totally believable explanation of why he was a birther and now isn't:

That is: the consumption of evil toxin-filled foods &mdash; as ascertained by "university-level analytical instrumentation" &mdash; caused Adams to become so delirious and susceptible to strange beliefs that he believed that President Obama's birth certificate was fake. Unfortunately, it seems that some toxic metals remain in Adams, since all of the other articles on NaturalNews continue to show the mind-altering symptoms.

"Cartoons"
One of the more ridiculous features of NaturalNews are Adams' cartoons, which are even less entertaining than Mallard Fillmore or The Far Left Side. These ran until 2011, and were usually followed by paragraph after paragraph of Adams having to explain the cartoon to an audience who otherwise wouldn't find them funny, let alone care. Thankfully, he didn't do much of the actual art, which was mostly having been handled by Dan Berger of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame, unfortunately.

"Music"
More ridiculous still is the "Music" section on NaturalNews, where Adams posts hip-hop videos and songs he wrote about the alternative quackery of the day. Most of the so-called "music" is cheap-sounding hip-hop injected with Mike's screeds about how terrible vaccines and antidepressants are. Just like his cartoons, his hip-hop postings are also followed by paragraphs of his own self-aggrandizement and boring explanations of his works for those (read: most) who didn't care to listen to the actual song.

As far as poetry is concerned, Adams' creativity is unbounded.

Good Gopher
GoodGopher is a search engine produced by Adams that blocks out reality-based information "propaganda". Enter any topic of skeptical (not just alt-med) interest and it will return the very finest crank information available.

Legal threats
Adams has threatened legal action against one of his many critics, Jon Entine (who, of course, published the threat in full):

Entine was neither intimidated nor impressed:

Twitter silliness
In 2010, Adams was nominated in the Shorty Awards, basically a popularity contest for Twitter users. Adams had the most votes in the health category, closely followed by fellow alt-med guru Joseph Mercola. Skeptics decided to vote up Rachel Dunlop, a skeptical doctor from Australia, getting her to the top of the health charts.

Adams and Mercola started pouting went vote-canvassing; hundreds of their supporters turned up, created new accounts, and were promptly disqualified, as only existing accounts were allowed to vote. When Dunlop won, Adams was most upset and responded with a list of what "skeptics" believe:

Email spam
Adams sells software to evade spam blockers through his company Arial Software. Does Adams admit responsibility for spam? No, he prefers to blame those who buy spammed products, rather than the spammers actually sending the stuff. Adams claims to hate spam, yet he tacitly admits that he himself is a spammer. Confirming Adams' duplicitousness, NaturalNews and its allied sites were banned from both Wikipedia and Facebook for spamming, and in the case of Facebook, for using troll farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines to spam.

Audio and video
Adams also owns NaturalNews Radio and NaturalNews TV, the same stuff via streaming and video, in case Mike's flock ever wanted more of his sage wisdom. The star of his 2017 movie "Biosludged" is human excrement. In 2018, however, YouTube took down his entire Health Ranger channel.

Brighteon
Adams created an alternative to YouTube originally called REAL.video, but later renamed it Brighteon in October 2018 to accompany the opening of his new food and supplement store BrighteonStore. He created this site in response to "censorship" on YouTube, especially that of his good friend Alex Jones, whose livestreams moved to this site after his ban. The site mostly has conservative channels. Conspiracy theories thrive on this site as well.

Survivalism
In 2011, Adams gave some advice about survivalism and buying shitloads of guns to his fellow paranoids on a goldbug forum, warning that the bogus 2012 apocalypse was around the corner.

More recently, Adams has been branching out into survivalism and fearmongering about a potential technological or economic collapse of the United States, including founding or partnering with several specialized news sites devoted to those topics, such as Collapse.News in August 2015, Bugout.News in November 2015, and so on.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Adams being the founder and owner of the online store RangerGear.com, your source for "Quality, affordable prepping and survival gear of the highest possible quality [sic] personally tested by the Health Ranger" since November 2015. Nothing at all.🇱🇮

Hoggwatch
Adams created a webshite to push negative (and false) stories about David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland shooting.

Temporary removal from Google
Around February 23, 2017, NaturalNews.com was removed from all Google search results, likely due to a sneaky redirect (for instance, the link in the mobile version in search results does not direct to the same address as the link in the desktop version). Predictably, Mike Adams flipped the table, shrieked, pulled his hair, and accused Google as a bully, a pusher of hate speech, censor-happy, insane, hucksters for Big Pharma, killers (because they censor quackery cancer cures), a danger to humanity, and whatever else one can imagine and expect from someone like Mike Adams. It's strange how he reacted this way, since he had, after all, created his own goddamn search engine because he distrusted "mainstream" search engines. Sadly, NaturalNews.com has since been listed again in Google search results.

Anti-tech giant campaign
NaturalNews gets an estimated 1.4 million visitors per month. Regardless, Adams, claiming to be censored, launched a vicious personal attack on tech giant CEOs — Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Tim Cook (Apple), Sundar Pichai (Google), and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) — using Nazi analogies, and creating a wanted poster the six of them on it.

RationalWiki
Some user comments underneath the site's articles speak rather unfavorably of RationalWiki. However, their blog article on "Making Healthier Decisions" was kind enough to reference our list of cognitive biases.

Their article crying about censorship describes this site as a "vaccine propagandist" website.

Fake news empire
On October 14th, 2021, tech news website Ars Technica published an article about Robert Willis, a man who helped an unnamed media organization that "hawked supplements and alternative cures" build an elaborate network of fake news websites that Willis believes played a key role in Donald Trump's election. A few days later, Willis admitted that the media organization in question was NaturalNews.