Another mainstream media has jumped on the bandwagon to defame and denounce Dr. Mercola, using debunked, false information derived from a dark money group, this time targeting him for his support for the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
NVIC is a nonprofit 501c3 founded in 1982 by parents of children who were injured or died following DPT vaccine reactions. Its mission is and always has been an advocacy and educational model to help prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to secure informed consent protections in U.S. vaccine policies and laws.
NVIC does not specifically target any gender, race or socioeconomic status in its mission, yet Insider (formerly Business Insider) decided to target gender status in an email request for a comment from Dr. Mercola on an upcoming story.
Using the dark money-funded Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as its source, Insider tech lists fellow Madeline Renbarger asked Dr. Mercola to comment on his financial support for NVIC:
“We are writing a story about how there's more disinformation targeting mothers and that you've been named by the CCDH as an individual organization that posts content considered to be anti-vaccination material,” Renbarger began. Focusing on a Mercola Instagram post promoting a fundraiser for NVIC, Renbargar said, “We are pointing to this post and pointing out that it points to a fundraising effort based on targeting mothers' anxieties about vaccinating their children without scientific evidence justifying those fears.”
The Mercola media team responded that NVIC has “a long history of representing Americans and defending informed consent and other human rights.” The team also pointed out that Facebook itself debunked the CCDH’s claims that Dr. Mercola is the top “disinformation” spreader; in fact, Facebook debunked CCDH’s entire Disinformation Dozen, saying the whole group together doesn’t contribute to even a tiny fraction of what is considered “anti-vaccination” on the social media’s website.
That said, it’s obvious that Renbarger spent little, if any, time on NVIC’s website or she would know the site is strictly an information site, that it does not “target” mothers specifically, and its articles are fully referenced with scientific, medical literature sources, sometimes numbering more than 100 in a single article.
The Mercola editorial team added, “The social media post you cite is about empowering individuals with the ability to be educated and to make informed medical choices for themselves and their families. Mandates, media bias and the suppression of benefit/risk information is creating anxiety and fear that interferes with rational thinking and decision making.”
And what’s wrong with that? What is wrong with informed decision making backed by a wealth of medical literature sources showing the science behind the risks and benefits of vaccines, especially when the goal is to ease readers’ anxieties about the choices they make? Checkmate, Insider.
The email exchange is below.
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SOURCES:
Mercola.com internal emails
NVIC