Joseph Mercola

Mercola has been highly critical of vaccines and vaccination policy, claiming that too many vaccines are given too soon during infancy. He hosts anti-vaccination activists on his website, advocates other measures rather than vaccination in many cases such as using vitamin D rather than a flu shot despite the data not being conclusive and strongly criticizes influenza vaccines. Mercola is viewed by many as an anti-vaccine propagandist. As of 2019, he has donated at least $4 million to anti-vaccine groups though his Natural Health Research Foundation, including more than $2.9 million to the National Vaccine Information Center, amounting to about 40 percent of that organization's funding. He co-funded an anti-vaccination ad in Times Square in 2011.

In 2016, Mercola agreed to pay up to $5.3 million restitution after federal regulators complained that he made false claims about tanning beds that he sold.

Mercola operates Mercola.com, which he has described as the most popular alternative-health website on the internet. Aside from the main site, it also hosts various blog subsites, like Healthy Pets and Peak Fitness. 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 criticized his website as using aggressive direct-marketing tactics, writing:

Mercola's medical claims have been criticized by the medical, scientific, regulatory and business communities. A 2006 BusinessWeek editorial stated his marketing practices relied on "slick promotion, clever use of information, and scare tactics." In 2005, 2006, and 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Mercola and his company that they were making illegal claims of their products' ability to detect, prevent, and treat disease. The medical watchdog site Quackwatch has criticized Mercola for making "unsubstantiated claims [that] clash with those of leading medical and public health organizations and many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements." Of Mercola's marketing techniques, oncology surgeon David Gorski says it "mixes the boring, sensible health advice with pseudoscientific advice in such a way that it’s hard for someone without a medical background to figure out which is which."

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 bird flu 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.

Mercola has asserted that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, is harmful due to its mercury content. Thimerosal has been removed from most vaccines given to young children in the U.S., with no effect on rates of autism diagnosis. 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 thimerosal in vaccines."

Joseph Michael Mercola /m ər ˈ k oʊ l ə / (born July 8, 1954) is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet businessman, who markets dietary supplements and medical devices, some of which are controversial. Until 2013, Mercola operated the "Dr. Mercola Natural Health Center" (formerly the "Optimal Wellness Center") in Schaumburg, Illinois. He wrote the books The No-Grain Diet (with Alison Rose Levy) and The Great Bird Flu Hoax. On his website, Mercola and colleagues advocate a number of unproven alternative health notions including homeopathy and anti-vaccine positions which have faced persistent criticism. Mercola is a member of the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons as well as several alternative medicine organizations.

Joseph Mercola was born July 8, 1954 in Chicago Illinois. His mother, Jeanette Aldridge (née Freeman) was a waitress and his father, Thomas Nicholas Mercola, was an Air Force veteran who worked for Marshall Fields. Mercola attended Lane Tech College Prep High School and went on to study biology and chemistry at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1976. In 1982, he graduated from 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 stopped seeing patients in 2009 to work full-time on his health products and vitamin supplements business.

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.