Dr Mercola’s anti-vaccination advice, and why you shouldn't take it

Dr Mercola is a star of the anti-vaccination movement. He is that rare beast - a doctor who has a lot of research to support his views. But can you trust the information found on mercola.com?

Mercola.com claims to be the world's number one natural health website and it was an argument with a friend about vaccinations that got me to first click on it in May 2017. There I found a wonderland of advice about every health issue imaginable.

Believing that if we are going to trust advice found on the internet, we need to first evaluate the source of that advice, I decided to examine the site as a whole and analyse what I found, instead of just reading what it published about vaccinations. And as websites change frequently, I took screenshots.

Mercola.com offers access to a whopping 300,000 articles free of charge. Let's start by deconstructing that. Dr Mercola says he started the site in 1997, so that's twenty years. Maybe I am cynical but it is hard to believe that one man found the time to author, or at the very least authorise, 15,000 articles a year. That's 288 a week. 41 a day. Seven days a week. For 20 years without a break.

The website currently has three broad areas of interest – health, pets and fitness. Could Dr Mercola really be an expert in all these areas? Of course not. Actually, at the top of the page there are five categories. The other two are Shop and Contact Us.

Clicking on Contact Us took me to a page that told me I could get instant answers on these categories - Shipping, International Shipping Restrictions, Krill Oil, Miracle Whey ™ Protein Powder, Cookware and Wool Bedding.

How very odd. Dr Mercola claims this is the Number 1 Natural Health Website but the Contact Us page clearly belongs to a marketing site.

I am sceptical about any health product that has the word miracle and click on Miracle Whey ™ Protein Powder and find for a pack of 11 servings the price is $29.97. A note states that the price has been discounted and is 20 % off and I quickly discover that every product that I check appears to have had the price reduced. This seems to be a tactic to make people think they are getting a bargain.

Mercola claims to have "taken one of our most popular whey proteins to the next level with additions like Nature's first milk and the ancient Bolivian complete protein 'Mother Grain'. However, the price still sounds like a lot of money to me. And the spiel sounds like a lot of marketing bullshit.

Miracle Whey ™ Protein Powder is supposed to support your immune health and this is an important - and no doubt profitable - claim on a site that states that immune support is a safer option than "artificial" vaccination.

Let's go now to the Shop. You can buy products in the categories of Supplements, Proteins, Food & Drinks, Personal Care, Home & Garden, Pets, Kids, Fitness, Books & DVDs, Top Products and Sale items. Each of these categories are further broken down into sub-categories. For the hell of it, I count these subcategories and find there are 158. That's not 158 different products, that's 158 different types of products and most of these products are branded with the name Dr Mercola.

Again, the question comes up - wherever did he find the time to research and approve these products? Again, I come to the same answer. It is simply not possible, yet there is a dizzying and dazzling array of products with his name on them. You can even buy Dr Mercola Seasonal Support for pets with seasonal allergies.

Some of the items have very high price tags. You can buy something called a Power Plate with Power Shield and Free Vitality Pack for $9,849.00. I kid you not. And that's the discount price.

On top of the 300,000 articles, and the countless products, and the newsletter, Mercola's balding head also appears in endless videos spruiking his stuff. But that's not all - we are expected to believe that he has found time to write numerous books too and these are also for sale on the site.

How does he find the time? There's a simple answer. He doesn't. One person cannot do all this. This is simply marketing branded with a human face. This is Big Merchandising from Big Merch Mercola. Mercola is not standing up to big business like he claims. Mercola is big business.

The blurring of man and marketing machine is such that I no longer know what pronoun to use. He? It? They? I find myself using the pronoun "he" then realise that I am humanising something that is coldly inhuman. It is difficult to see beyond the face, and name, and first person pronouns of Dr Mercola to the marketing machine beyond. It is like trying to get a grasp of the business operations of McDonalds but being unable to see past Ronald the clown.

People who follow Dr Mercola, and trust him, think they are getting advice from a person. But they are not. They are getting advice from a very slick marketing machine.

Next, I looked at the language used on the site. It is highly manipulative. Fear sells. Here's a quote from the plug for his new book. "And even if you haven't yet been diagnosed with cancer, you likely have cancer cells in your body right now. Just about everyone has at least some."

It is not long before I find advice that is downright dangerous. Here is a quote from an article with the head line, "The Surprising Cause of Melanoma (And No, it's Not Too Much Sun)". "In fact, melanoma occurrence has been found to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens."

Despite the claim about sunscreens, there is a Dr Mercola sunscreen is for sale in the shop - along with Dr Mercola Healthy Skin Tanning Lotion.

Joseph Mercola is the face of a faceless corporation that has no conscience about what it sells.

I say it is a faceless corporation because it hides in the shadows. Anytime I analyse a website I look carefully at the About Us page. On this site that page is all about the man, not the business that bears his name.

I feel deliberately misled. One person could not possibly do all that the site claims Dr Mercola has done. And if you can't trust that basic premise what can you trust? I'd say you can trust nothing.

It is ironic that these words are in black and white on the About page – "The primary trick of the existing medical establishment is to get you to forget that first question – their real motivation?"

That is exactly what this site sets out to get you to do - forget their real motivation. If you want the real motivation click on the Shop for Health Products.

I find that the most important message on the site is buried away in Terms and Conditions. Any material and/or information downloaded or otherwise obtained through the use of or from the Website is done at your own discretion and risk. You are solely responsible for your use or nonuse of such information.

Can you trust the anti-vaccination advice that comes from Dr Mercola? On the one hand, I'd say no and on the other hand Dr Mercola says that if you do you are solely responsible. I'll take that as a no too.