Mercola – The Stupid, It Burns!

Source: Plognark

„Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.“
— Albert Einstein

Well, in the days of the internet, this famous quote by Einstein is proven true every day. On some occasions, however, real gems will appear. Not out of nowhere, no, they grow from seeds of idiocy to fully grown mammoth trees of stupidity. We „proudly“ present such a gem today:

The impact of the finding that many vaccines are derived from aborted fetal cell lines is potentially enormous, given the great number of people who define themselves as Pro Life. For someone who is Pro Life to discover that a vaccine contains the DNA from aborted fetuses is like a Muslim finding out that a vaccine is derived from pork.

(emphasis EsoWatch)

and

A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has led to a question of whether there is a correlation between the abrupt rise in American autism rates with the introduction of fetal cells for use in vaccines (1988). This correlation has prompted researchers to ask the question about how aborted fetal DNA could be causing, or contributing to, the development of autism disorders in children.

The author of these lines actually claims that vaccines were not only created from aborted fetuses, no, they were also causing autism because of that. But wait, it gets even better:

The Vatican states it’s your „grave responsibility“ to use alternative vaccines when available, i.e., vaccines not derived from aborted human fetuses.

Wow, even the Vatican agrees with him… (Well, actually, the Vatican does not, but who cares? Truth and proof are just guidelines, right?)

The Stupidity, It Burns!

Well, you may probably think we made this up. Sorry, too much credit to our creativity. We could never make THAT up…

No, the author of this fantasy story is the osteopathic physician Joseph Mercola.

Joseph Mercola is a real „hero“ of alternative medicine. He promotes Germanic New Medicine of racist Ryke Geerd Hamer as a „new view of cancer“ on his website. What he does not mention is that the total number of victims of Hamer’s method in and outside of Germany exceeds 140 (as of 2007).

He also promotes the Sodium Bicarbonate Therapy according to Tullio Simoncini which must be considered one of the most ineffective and absurd methods claiming to cure cancer patients: Cancer was a fungus and can be cured with baking soda. (The stupidity, It Burns!)

Mercola also claims that HIV was not the cause of AIDS, that sunscreen increased the likelihood of skin cancer, that prescription drugs were harmful and that medicine killed more people than it saved. Notable is a series of articles titled Death by Medicine. Among the authors of this series are dubious writers like Gary Null (dubious credentials and products) and Carolyn Dean (had her registration certificate revoked because of „disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct“ in 1995).

But, it is unfair to give him the full credit for this story, he has certainly grown the mammoth tree (of stupidity) from a seed, but the seed was planted by one Helen Ratajczak (the inventor of the idea) and one Sharyl Attkisson, a CBS reporter who made an article out of it.

Regardless of other flaws, the core logic behind the Ms Ratajczak’s claim is simple: „Nobody has shown that DNA does not cause autism, so it must be true.“
Sure. Nobody has shown that Pluto is not made of cake, so it must be true.

Alas, even if they are so stupid that it burns, we should also look at the claims themselves and not dismiss them just because Mercola made them. We really should, but the pain, the pain…

So, instead of doing this here, we want to refer you to other sites which have already accomplished this tremendous feat. First and foremost to the blog Respectful Insolence and secondly to the Skeptic’s dictionary. Both are worth bookmarking, two beacons of reason in the craziness of the internet.

You will find lots of details about the entire story there, also discussing aspects we didn’t cover.