Joseph Mercola

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 e.g. the use of most prescription drugs against diseases and ailments. His business practices are regarded as dubious by various sources and he has been warned by the FDA several times for violating the law in advertising products using false and exaggerated claims.

Short biography

Mercola is a 1976 graduate of the University of Illinois and Gary Null on the cover of a booka 1982 graduate of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. His website, Mercola.com, which he started in 1997 is the most frequently visited natural health website today with over 1.5 million subscribers. He has written several books, The No-Grain Diet and The Great Bird Flu Hoax made it to the New York 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 and claims that "gay male lifestyle" reduces life expectancy by 20 years. and many things more. It publishes a journal which is neither peer-reviewed nor regarded as "scientific" at all. Quackwatch lists it as an untrustworthy non-recommended periodical.

Mercola on Food

He basically advocates a so called Paleolithic diet, consisting mostly of unprocessed foods. He recommends to use coconut oil 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.

The American Heart Association states that saturated fats like coconut oil contribute to heart disease and recommends to limit their ingestion, a position that is supported by science

Mercola's claims against homogenized milk have been called "tenuous and implausible" by the American Medical Association.

He rants against the use of microwave ovens and claims that they are hazardous and recommends to buy his "Aroma's Turbo Oven", which miraculously protects the nutritional value of the food, instead. His claims are totally bogus as various scientific papers show. Due to the short heating time in microwave ovens nutrient content is actually preserved.

Other Claims

Mercola promotes various pseudoscientific ideas on his website, that HIV is not the cause for AIDS, that sunscreen increases the likelihood of skin cancer, that vaccines are dangerous and that prescription drugs are harmful and should be avoided

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. One 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. All things Mercola sells. The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 18,000 deaths by H1N1 till August 2010.

He also claims that medicine kills more people than it saves. Among the authors of the Death by Medicine series are authors like Gary Null (dubious credentials, dubious products) and Carolyn Dean (defrocked 1995 because of "disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct"). The articles are full of false science, wrong claims and fallacies.