Since the 30-day supply of Core Five dietary supplements is sold out at a cut price of US$124 online, I am offered an alternative selection that will help me “take control” of my “unique female health needs.”
It is the first time that I begin to feel a tinge of worry about what I may have been missing all these decades, feeding my family homemade meals and avoiding medications that prompt a headache to pronounce.
We have never enjoyed the fishy bottled benefits of krill oil gels, the antioxidants ubiquinol and astaxanthin, whole food multivitamins or the most complete probiotic that promises to support my needy immune system at a crucial time with just ten strains of active bacteria. If I sign up for the newsletter or create an account I will get 20 percent off. Given my Guyanese upbringing I am most tempted by the cassava bars. Alas, there are no quercetin-flavoured plantain chips.
The site is having a flash sale, so it seeks to entice me with everything else from clothing and cosmetics to cookware. Perhaps, the shrewd algorithms sense with my pitiful purse, that I am overwhelmed by the choices, so a 9.5-ounce bag of fermented greens pops up at US$30, with savings of 40 percent, but being a capsaicin-crazed Caribbean native, I take a furtive glance at my jar of seething habaneros in flushed brine lurking in a dark corner of the kitchen, and quickly pass.
When I follow the tiny asterisks besides the countless claims to enhance my mitochondrial, cognitive and heart health, to the very bottom of the page, there is a neatly boxed disclaimer. “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
Behind this lucrative e-commerce empire is the alternative medicine proponent, Dr. Joseph Mercola, 67, an American osteopathic physician, who launched his namesake website Mercola.com in 1997. His products are on front shelves in leading pharmacies across the region, earning him big profits daily. His net worth, derived largely from a network of private companies, has grown to “in excess of US$100M” he revealed in a 2017 affidavit.
Long claiming that some of his supplements are alternatives to immunisations, Dr. Mercola has given millions to supporting group, including the deceptively-named National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) which received at least US$2.9M or about 40 percent of its funding from him, according to public tax records. The NVIC is among the United States’ (US) main anti-vaccine organisations, named as a super-spreader of COVID-19 lies on Facebook and social media.
Recently, researchers identified Dr. Mercola as the chief spreader of coronavirus misinformation online. An analysis by the New York Times (NYT) found that he had published over 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on COVID-19 vaccines since the pandemic began, reaching a far greater audience than rivals. These claims were echoed on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
He takes the top spot in “The Disinformation Dozen,” a list of 12 people responsible for sharing 65 percent of all anti-vaccine messaging on social media, according to the international non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) which also works to counter online hate, and has offices in the US and the United Kingdom (UK).
The analysis of content posted or shared to social media over 812,000 times between just February and March this year uncovered “how a tiny group of determined anti-vaxxers is responsible for a tidal wave of disinformation – and shows how platforms can fix it by enforcing their standards.”
Recommending that de-platforming repeat offenders is the most effective way of stopping the proliferation of dangerous misinformation, the Center said its’ ongoing tracking of 425 “anti-vaxx” accounts finds that the total following across platforms reached 59.2M people in December 2020, an increase of 877,000 since June that year. Groups, these individuals control or fund, as well as any backup accounts they have established to evade removal should be penalised, the Center stated.
The Center advised that users should be always presented with warning screens when attempting to follow links to sites known to host vaccine misinformation. Facebook should not allow private and secret anti-vaccine groups where anti-vaccine disinformation can be spread with impunity, it added.
The Center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed pointed to the devastating impact of the COVID-19 virus particularly on Black, Latino, and Native American communities, warning that vaccination rates in communities of colour have lagged and “skepticism and distrust of the vaccines are greater in these marginalized communities.”
“With widespread distribution of coronavirus vaccines, we have an opportunity to turn a corner on the pandemic. Our recovery depends on the public’s willingness to receive a vaccine. However, researchers are increasingly connecting misinformation disseminated via social media to increased vaccine hesitancy, which will ultimately cause unnecessary deaths,” he stressed.
Mr Ahmed warned that “living in full view of the public on the internet are a small group of individuals who do not have relevant medical expertise and have their own pockets to line, who are abusing social media platforms to misrepresent the threat of COVID and spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines.”
The “Dirty Dozen” list names Joseph Mercola, long-time anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr; anti-vax entrepreneurs Ty and Charlene Bollinger, osteopath physician Sherri Tenpenny, social media influencer Rizza Islam, osteopath physician/conspiracy theorist Rashid Buttar, Mercola’s partner and Health Nut News boss Erin Elizabeth, alternative health website GreenMedInfo’s Sayer Ji, a pseudoscience promoter and his partner Kelly Brogan, physician Christiane Northrup, chiropractor Ben Tapper and anti-vaccine activist Kevin Jenkins. Mr Jenkins is a co-founder of the Freedom Airway & Freedom Travel Alliance, a company launched in late 2020 to help its members move around the world without observing any masking, quarantining, vaccination, or other pandemic control measures.
The Google algorithm knows that I own dogs, so Mercola.com tries one last advertisement, “Dehydrated Dog Food – Free-Range Chicken Entrée (3 lbs.),” about US$80, with 20 percent off, but I refuse to bite.
ID refers to a 2017 article on the Ringer sports and pop culture website, that Dr. Mercola “is carefully positioned to attract and comfort people who feel cast off, lied to, and vulnerable” and “spins a compelling tale: The world is treacherous, and danger lurks in protein powders, laptops, toothpaste, and hot tubs,” and “your local doc is in the pocket of Big Pharma.”
