Joseph Michael Mercola (/mərˈkoʊlə/;[1] born July 8, 1954) is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business person.

Mercola operates Mercola.com, which he has described as the most popular alternative-health website on the internet.[4] 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.[2] 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.[2] The site promotes a number of disproven health ideas, including the notion that homeopathy can treat autism, and that vaccinations have hidden detriments to human health.[2] An article in BusinessWeek criticized his website as using aggressive direct-marketing tactics, writing:[4]

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.
Phyllis Entis, a microbiologist and food safety expert, highlighted Mercola.com as an example of websites "likely to mislead consumers by offering one-sided, incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information."[19]

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.[20]

Vaccinations
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[10][21] and strongly criticizes influenza vaccines. Mercola is viewed by many as an anti-vaccine propagandist.[22] 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 anti-vaccination group the National Vaccine Information Center, amounting to about 40 percent of that organization's funding.[10] He co-funded an anti-vaccination ad in Times Square in 2011.[22]

Mercola has asserted that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, is harmful due to its mercury content.[23] Thimerosal has been removed from most vaccines given to young children in the U.S., with no effect on rates of autism diagnosis.[24][25] Extensive evidence has accumulated since 1999 showing that this preservative is safe,[26] 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."[26][27]

COVID-19
See also: Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic
In 2020, Mercola was one of the partners in a website called "Stop Covid Cold" offering advice to the public on preventing and treating Covid-19 with alternative remedies. The website includes links to Mercola's online store and puts a strong emphasis on vitamin D supplements, despite a lack of scientific evidence pointing to the effectiveness of such a treatment.[28][29]

Mercola claimed that inhaling 0.5-3% hydrogen peroxide solution using a nebulizer could prevent or cure COVID-19.[30][31] A tweet from Mercola advertising this method was removed from Twitter on April 15, 2020, for violating the platform rules,[31] but he continued to make these claims on other platforms, including during a speech at a major conference of anti-vaccination activists in October.[28]

Despite Mercola being identified as a major amplifier of COVID-19 misinformation, his business received a federal loan of $335,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020.[32][33]

Obbop wrote:"Instead of facing reality, the delusional person would rather live in their world of make-believe."

chairman bill wrote:Having lost friends & colleagues to Covid, my greatest fear is that I'll beat the fuck out of any cunt I meet who says it's a hoax/like 'flu/etc., and then get locked up for it

jamest wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Having lost friends & colleagues to Covid, my greatest fear is that I'll beat the fuck out of any cunt I meet who says it's a hoax/like 'flu/etc., and then get locked up for it

Everyone has lost friends/etc. since time began to ALL manner of supposed causes, but at no point in history has society ever closed-down and practically destroyed the economy (and potentially the society itself) for 'a cause' which has killed 0.0018% of the populace (in the UK - a year on) even when the majority of them are very old people.

The number of cases remained low throughout February, reaching 40 by the end of the month, but surged in mid-March, soon rising to over a hundred per day. Public venues and businesses were ordered to close in Bangkok and several other provinces. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha declared a state of emergency, effective on 26 March, and a curfew went into effect on 3 April. All commercial international flights were suspended from 4 April, and lockdown measures were implemented in varying degrees throughout the country. The rate of new cases gradually dropped throughout April, and by mid-May, locally transmitted infection rates had fallen to near-zero, and easing of restrictions was gradually implemented.

The public has cooperated relatively well with health advisories...

chairman bill wrote:Having lost friends & colleagues to Covid, my greatest fear is that I'll beat the fuck out of any cunt I meet who says it's a hoax/like 'flu/etc., and then get locked up for it

Spearthrower wrote:

jamest wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Having lost friends & colleagues to Covid, my greatest fear is that I'll beat the fuck out of any cunt I meet who says it's a hoax/like 'flu/etc., and then get locked up for it

Everyone has lost friends/etc. since time began to ALL manner of supposed causes, but at no point in history has society ever closed-down and practically destroyed the economy (and potentially the society itself) for 'a cause' which has killed 0.0018% of the populace (in the UK - a year on) even when the majority of them are very old people.

Jamest... you don't even seem to be able to parse your own arguments. Honestly, for someone so full of themselves and so arrogant and condescending, you routinely exhibit such desperately dense reasoning skills.

jamest wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

jamest wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Having lost friends & colleagues to Covid, my greatest fear is that I'll beat the fuck out of any cunt I meet who says it's a hoax/like 'flu/etc., and then get locked up for it

Everyone has lost friends/etc. since time began to ALL manner of supposed causes, but at no point in history has society ever closed-down and practically destroyed the economy (and potentially the society itself) for 'a cause' which has killed 0.0018% of the populace (in the UK - a year on) even when the majority of them are very old people.

Jamest... you don't even seem to be able to parse your own arguments. Honestly, for someone so full of themselves and so arrogant and condescending, you routinely exhibit such desperately dense reasoning skills.

So, let's get this straight: you've just called me "full of myself and arrogant and condescending", correct? Yet, after my response to you, here, I'll be called a troll by you in your next post. Correct?

Take your mask for a shit.

condone a principal which supports destroying society to the point of anarchy