In this episode, Hannah and Victoria discuss the recent changes happening at Mercola.com and the strange influencer influencing Dr. Mercola.

Show notes:

* Carnivore update - Paul Saladino eats some plants now

* Dr. Mercola 

* 1.7 M followers on FB, 512K on IG, 417K followers on X

* Osteopath, DO

* Stopped treating patients in 2009 to focus on his brand. Net worth in 2017 over 100 million

* In the past 10 yeras, he’s been covered by multiple outlets as either a quack or walking a fine line between holistic and kooky: 2012 article in Chicago Magazine - https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2012/Dr-Joseph-Mercola-Visionary-or-Quack/, BRYAN SMITH

* During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mercola, his company, and social media site were warned again by the FDA in 2020–2021 for falsely advertising the efficacy of high doses of vitamin C, vitamin D3, quercetin, and pterostilbene products to "mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure" COVID-19 disease.[8

* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24053-4 - study on vitamin D supplementation and covid

* https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1131103/full - vitamin D supplementation meta and systematic review

* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-21513-9 - vitamin D status and risk of severe covid

* Banned from YouTube - videos taken down and 

* In 2023, executives of his company Mercola Market complained that JP Morgan closed their bank accounts. The financial institution indicated those accounts were terminated when they became aware of "multiple occasions of regulatory scrutiny, raising concerns about a pattern of deceptive business practices." Source: Wikipedia

https://myfloridacfo.com/docs-sf/cfo-news-libraries/news-documents/2023/chase-letter.pdf?sfvrsn=25b03a95_2 - letter from Jimmy Patronis, CFO of the state of FL, to JP Morgan

* From the Chicago Mag article by Smith: “Steven Salzberg, a prominent biologist, professor, and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls Mercola “the 21st-century equivalent of a snake-oil salesman.” 

“Mercola says that his critics are wrong on all counts. Far from dispensing dangerous misinformation or trading in conspiracy theories, as some allege, he is a champion of “taking charge of our own health,” the doctor insists—a truth teller alerting Americans to what he calls the abuses, hoaxes, and myths perpetrated by the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.”

Even Dr. Oz called him controversial.

According to traffic-tracking firm Quantcast, Mercola.com draws about 1.9 million unique visitors per month, each of whom returns an average of nearly ten times a month. 

That remarkable “stickiness” puts the site’s total visits on a par with those to the National Institutes of Health’s website. (Mercola claims his is “the world’s No. 1 natural health website,” citing figures from Alexa.com.) Mercola’s 200,000-plus “likes” on Facebook are more than double the number for WebMD. And two of his eight books—2003’s The No-Grain Diet and 2006’s The Great Bird Flu Hoax—have landed on the New York Times bestseller list.

>> Mercola says he recently donated $1 million to several alternative medicine groups, including the National Vaccine Information Center, which describes itself as a “vaccine watch dog.” Part of the money, according to the group’s website, was used to pay for an ad called “Vaccines: Know the Risk,” which was shown hourly on the CBS Jumbotron in Times Square for several weeks last spring.

* Newsletter from National Vaccine Information Center that outlines the issue, June 2024: https://www.nvic.org/newsletter/may-2024/defending-freedom-of-religion

* Mrs. Barbara Loe-Fisher

* I was proud to work side by side in a trusted partnership with him and thankful for the generous average of $300,000 per year over a span of 15 years he donated through his foundation to NVIC, which we counted on in our annual budget to help our small staff operate four websites and implement nationwide vaccine choice advocacy programs and services.12

* On March 25, 2024, NVIC received an email from someone identifying herself as the new CEO of Mercola.com informing us that donations from Dr. Mercola’s Natural Health Products Research Foundation were immediately discontinued.

* The only verifiable information I had about what had happened were two articles published in Natural Products Insider on Feb. 1317 and Mar. 1, 202418 informing readers that the Mercola.com company was under new management and that Dr. Mercola was now being influenced by and taking direction from a person, who refers to himself as “the Kai” and claims to be a “psychic” channeling the voice of an “ancient and wise high-vibration entity from the causal plane” called Bahlon.19 20 21

* The media articles published in February and March detailed the fact that this self- identified psychic who Dr. Mercola is now consulting with had convinced him that he, Dr. Mercola, is “a god” and “the new Jesus.”22 The articles contained references to videos and descriptions of what had taken place at the Mercola.com company in early February when Dr. Mercola without warning fired top executives, including his own sister, who helped him establish and has worked at his company for 40 years.

* More in a 2001 NYT article by Arthur Allen: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/magazine/questions-for-barbara-loe-fisher-on-the-costs-of-vaccination.html 

* Barbara Loe-Fisher sued Paul Offit over a piece that was published in Wired magazine in 2009. “As the Complaint puts it, "Offit disagrees adamantly with the . . . positions taken by Plaintiff Arthur and advocated by her and by NVIC." In response to those positions, Defendant Offit is quoted in the article as saying that "`Kaflooey theories' make him crazy" and that Plaintiff "makes him particularly nuts as in `You just want to scream'" because "She lies." He goes on to say that Plaintiff "inflames people against me. And wrongly. I'm in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think that Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?" In her Complaint, Plaintiff contends that, Defendant Offit's statement "she lies," is defamatory and that he and the Magazine Defendants have published a false statement of fact and have committed defamation per se, causing her to appear "odious, infamous, and ridiculous." Arthur v. Offit, Civil Action No. 01:09-cv-1398, 6 (E.D. Va. Mar. 10, 2010)

* From Natural Products Insider, March 2024: https://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/supplements/dr-mercola-allegedly-plans-to-introduce-psychic-advisor-to-followers- 

“In the article, Mercola described his consultations with “a collective source energy aimed at bringing self-awareness to Earth,” whom he referred to as “Bahlon.” 

Mercola fired CEO Steve Rye; Chief Business Officer Ryan Boland; and Chief Editor Janet Selvig, Mercola’s sister, Feb. 7, as detailed in a Natural Products Insider exclusive Feb 13.

The Bahlon “entity” is claimed to be channeled by a man identifying himself as Kai Clay and who also appears to present himself as Christopher Johnson. LinkedI