Respectful Insolence: “Joe Mercola’s Shampoo Woo”
In my years on the “Bodybuilding Revealed” and “Fat Loss Revealed” forums, I’ve had to field a number of questions related to the rather bizarre mix of sense and nonsense spewed by Dr. Joseph Mercola. Sorting out the truth from the half-truths and outright, self-serving BS is no mean feat – Dr. M is a skillful writer, who knows exactly what buttons to push in order to convince his audience. As I put it to one forum member:
If you’ve read my posts on the good doctor, then you’ve certainly encountered this statement:
“…I read his stuff periodically (I’m on the e-mail list), but take some of what he says with a grain of salt. He’s got an agenda, and frequently selects or spins info to support a predetermined position.”
That is my honest opinion. For the record, I don’t see him as “crazy.” Nor do I see him as “legit” (I do not know the source of his title, nor do I care – I judge him on the basis of his writing, not his credentials…I’ve known legit MDs and PhDs who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel). There are points he makes that I would agree with completely. But, IMO, he’s less concerned with the health of his readers than he is with their wallets… it’s not black/white; right/wrong. But I don’t trust him to be completely honest, and therein lies the problem I have with him.
My BBR colleague, Mark, describes Dr. M. as an “overwrought professional alarmist,” which – I think – sums the man up pretty well.
Of course, Mark and I are hardly the only ones who’ve done time deconstructing Dr. M’s m.o. Fortunately, several members of the health/skeptical community have also weighed him in the balance and found him wanting. This recent post, “Joe Mercola’s Shampoo Woo,” by surgical oncologist/researcher Dr. David Gorski (who blogs under the nom-de-plume “Orac”), provides a fantastic look at how Mercola misleads his readers, by presenting them with cherry-picked, selected facts about commercial products (in this case, shampoo), in order to drive sales of products from his own store.
Mercola lists five “toxic” ingredients that many shampoos contain. He starts out with a particularly hilarious example, sodium lauryl sulfate, also known as sodium dodecyl sulfate or SDS:
Did you know the same ingredient which produces all that foam and lather when you shampoo your hair is also the ingredient used in car washes and garages as a degreasing agent?
Um, no, but so what? SDS is basically soap. It can help solubilize grease and suspend dirt on cars so that they can be more easily removed the same way it can solubilize grease on your skin to help remove it. That’s what soap does. In fact, if you consult the almighty Wikipedia, you’ll find that SDS is usually made from cocunut or palm kernel oil, just as other forms of soap are made from fatty acids from animals. Normally, Mercola would consider that to be natural, except when he doesn’t. That’s because SDS has a nasty, chemical name, making it more conveniently demonized in front of all those devotees of all “natural” lifestyles. If SDS is an evil, vile chemical, then so is soap.
Ha-ha – read the whole thing.
July 23, 2010
Respectful Insolence: “Joe Mercola’s Shampoo Woo” – http://blog.ultimatefatburner.com/2010/0…
July 24, 2010
what’s a shame with all of this is that mercola has had a long run of putting out his propaganda. i used to get his emails. since i have stoppped, i actually think it helps me. the air smells cleaner, water purer, shampoo is soapier…all in all, no bad things occurred. whenever mercola says one thing is bad, he does so because he has something to sell you to put in its place. see ceramic pans instead of teflon pans, krill oil instead of fish oil, his version of coconut oil vs other vendors, etc. grade AAA clown. i am better off not reading his spew. he does need to hit the gym. he is kind of has a where’s waldo build. no offense to waldo either.
July 24, 2010
LOL, Dennis – I used to be on the mailing list too, but got kicked off after Dr. M.’s operation noticed I wasn’t buying anything (literally as well as figuratively). But I actually held on to one particular e-mail, as it was an absolute masterpiece of paranoia and delusion – so much so that there were really only two (mutually exclusive) conclusions I could draw. If he believed what he wrote, then he’s absolutely bats**t crazy; and if he didn’t, then he’s a liar of Kevin Trudeau proportions. Here it is:
“IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL SUBSCRIBERS: Yesterday, the Mercola.com information servers were attacked by a source that does not want you to know the truth about the medical industry. All of the site’s articles including those in yesterday’s newsletter were therefore inaccessible to you for much of the day.
Fortunately, we have some of the best IT support on the Net and this attack failed to actually break into our website, though it did prevent access to the site to nearly everyone yesterday.
While it is difficult to determine the specific source of the attack, yesterday our new Town of Allopath online animated video that in an entertaining way sharply criticizes the current medical establishment spread extensively across the Web — see this Yahoo news item about The Town of Allopath, for example — likely prompting this retaliative attack from a company or organization that financially benefits from the corrupt conventional healthcare model. Please note:
We have repaired the situation. Below is a repeat of yesterday’s newsletter so you can read the articles. We will continue to provide you the truth whether the greedy drug companies and other organizations benefiting from the corrupt current medical system like it or not.”
This is from an e-mail I received on 3/24/06. So his server went down – which is an occupational hazard for any web-based operation. It’s happened to UFB in the past, as well as other sites I’ve been associated with. He doesn’t say what sort of attack it was (and any IT person worth a damn would be able to tell him if it was a virus, or a denial of service attack, etc. – assuming it was even an attack to begin with) and doesn’t know the source; but in the next breath, he doesn’t hesitate to attribute it to a swath of anonymous opponents! The goal, obviously, was to exploit the incident to puff his “lone crusader for truth and justice against the corrupt establishment” cred. Dramatic-sounding accusations against cartoonishly sinister villains are far more entertaining than proof!
It’s classic Mercola: he wants to be seen as a guru or even messiah-like figure that people should trust implicitly. He and only he can be relied upon to tell then The Truth.
ROFLMAO. If the “greedy drug companies” and other powerful interests were really trying to shut him down, rest assured, they would have done a much better job of it… they wouldn’t bother with random acts of petty (and readily repairable) harassment. But that’s the nature of fictional enemies: you can cast them as monolithic, powerful and evil one moment, and bumbling, ineffectual and incompetent the next, as suits your rhetorical purposes. Orwell had it nailed: being in a state of perpetual war is a great way to manipulate and control people.
July 24, 2010
I’ve read a lot of things you and others have said about the good Dr. Mercola. That has also made me read nothing that the good Dr. has written.
In reading this article, I think I have made the right choice.
Thank-you!
July 24, 2010
here is kind of an interesting tidbit. in case you are looking for some side work elissa, mercola is looking for a copy writer at mercola.com. check the employment section. here is what is says:
http://www.mercola.com/Employment/index.htm
“Writer, Copy
Description
Focus on brochures, sales copy. Writer to create approx. 2000 word sales letters for various health and self-improvement products and nutritional supplements to be sold primarily over the internet; each sales letter will be created by a specific process; must be aware of FDA regulations regarding making structure/function claims.”
kind of curious why they stuck in the last bit of FDA awareness. perhaps somebody got busted for stretching the truth a bit, huh joey?
July 25, 2010
I was ever that hard up for money, I’d consider prostitution or drug dealing first. 😉
July 29, 2010
Mercola, IS self serving – from peddling “clean” protein, to “safe” sunscreens – at a premium.
Check out http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ from The Environmental Working Group, for “safe” cosmetics or soap/shampoo, if you are concerned. At least this website explains what the product is, why its considered toxic as well as a toxicity “scale” from 1-10, with references.
Avoid paying this “preacher” a premium for products that you can find at your local store.
August 29, 2010
I started receiving Dr.Mercola’s newsletter
a year ago.his alarmist approach to every thing we put in our bodies followed by his alleged better alternatives grew old very quickly.
If half of what he claims is true,I find it a miracle that most of us have lived past the age of 20.