Joseph Mercola
From RationalWiki
Joseph Mercola, D.O. is a popular guru of alternative medicine. He advocates and provides a forum for many classic crank ideas, such as the idea that vaccines are dangerous, and modern medicine kills more people than it helps. His website is a veritable spring of pseudoscience, quackery, and logical fallacies. He is a promoter of the idea of an AMA/Big Pharma/FDA conspiracy.
Despite his claim that unlike real other doctors, he is not interested in profit[1], he advertises all manner of unproven products, and has a health center that dispenses alternative medicine for a steep price.[2]
[edit] Issues
In addition to the issues mentioned above, 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.
- Statin drugs are dangerous. This one is particularly horrible, as few medications or interventions has 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).
- Modern medicine kills you dead.
