From time to time various news agencies and organizations contact Mercola.com to challenge us on the articles we research, fact-check and post for our readers. Most recently two such organizations contacted us, Coda Story and NewsGuard.
In its ongoing scrutiny and “grading” of the Mercola.com website, NewsGuard, the self-ascribed arbiter of the trustworthiness of internet websites, has asked for information on Mercola’s COVID articles so NewsGuard can update its rating of Mercola.com’s coverage of the pandemic.
On behalf of Coda Story, reporter Isobel Cockerell is inquiring as to why Mercola.com has taken down certain COVID-related content from the website.
In the interest of transparency, we are posting here the Mercola email with Isobel Cockerell and John Gregory, NewsGuard’s deputy editor on health.
FROM: Isobel Cockerell
Dear Joseph and the press team at Mercola,
I'm writing an article about your decision to remove Covid-related content from your website. I have a few questions and would be grateful for a response - we're publishing the piece today and it would be so helpful to have a quote from you as soon as possible.
Anti-hate groups such as the CCDH are viewing this as a huge victory for science. What's your response to that?
Is self-censorship the only way to maintain your platform on social media?
How do you respond to claims that the content you're sharing is dangerous misinformation and that its distribution should be reduced in order to maintain vaccine rates?
Many thanks for your help.
FROM: Mercola PR
Hi Isobel,
Since CCDH’s associate Peter Hotez publicly demanded attacks should be launched against us by terrorism and cyberwarfare experts, our website has been taken down by these attacks twice in the last week.
www.nature.com
Dr. Mercola has encountered several serious threats to himself and his business, the damages have been really significant and we hope the digital hate group, Nature, and the Gates-funded Hotez will please call a stop for these attacks.
Dr. Mercola first reported the virus was likely leaked from the Wuhan laboratory in February 2020. Fact-checking groups had called this a conspiracy from the beginning (please see note from John Gregory). It is really difficult for the mainstream scientists and media who have been wrong about this to admit it now.
MTracey.substack.com
The digital hate group even utilizes this reason in their most recent report to deplatform us.
Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel
But it turns out everything we stated well over a year ago is now being validated.
NicholasWade.medium.com
The truth is really frightening for some people and industries; they will do anything to perpetuate propaganda that protects the most powerful pharmaceutical industry. It turns out that Publicis owns fact checkers like Newsguard, and they are a public relations company now being sued for illegally marketing opioids that killed thousands of people.
Massachusetts Sues Ad Agency Publicis, Alleging 'Deceptive Marketing Schemes' Fueled Opioid Crisis (forbes.com)
Brill and Crovitz Announce Launch of NewsGuard to Fight Fake News - NewsGuard (newsguardtech.com)
It’s really difficult to be in a position that in order to remain on these monopoly platforms, you have to lie and not make statements that upset the global pharmaceutical operations or their fact checking front groups.
FROM: John Gregory
My name is John Gregory, deputy editor on health at NewsGuard. You spoke last year with a colleague of mine for our rating on Mercola.com.
We are updating our rating to reflect Mercola's coverage of the novel coronavirus strain, known as COVID-19. In an article titled "Novel Coronavirus — The Latest Pandemic Scare," the site promotes two unfounded conspiracy theories about the virus' origins:
-The article stated: "In January 2018, China's first maximum security virology laboratory (biosecurity level 4) designed for the study of the world's most dangerous pathogens opened its doors — in Wuhan. Is it pure coincidence that Wuhan City is now the epicenter of this novel coronavirus infection?” There is no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, and genomic evidence has found that the virus is "96% percent identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.”
-The article also stated that "the hysteria being drummed up follows a now well-worn pattern where the population is kept in a perpetual state of anxiety and fear about microbes so that drug companies (aided by federal health officials) can come to the rescue with yet another expensive (and potentially mandatory) drug or vaccine.” It later suggested the outbreak was timed to coincide with the presidential budget request in order to benefit "the Pharma and public health lobby."
No evidence is provided to back this conspiracy, nor does any appear to exist.
Why did Mercola.com publish these claims, despite the lack of evidence backing them up?
Sources:
John Gregory, NewsGuard Email
Isobel Cockerell, Reporter, Coda Story Email