WorldNetDaily has a history of invoking fringe medical figures — like a man who has been called “Austria’s most notorious abortionist” — to fearmonger about human papilloma virus vaccines like Gardasil. WND editor Joseph Farah has found a new fringe medical figure to carry on the tradition.
In his Oct. 18 WND column, Farah dismisses a new study saying that girls who get the HPV vaccine are no more likely to engage in sexual activity than those who don’t. Farah doesn’t mention it, but that goes against his website’s previous reporting, in which it quoted factually challenged “researcher” Judith Reisman lumping in the vaccine with “promiscuity messages” the culture sends out. Farah added, “I would suggest they might even be less likely to become promiscuous. Because some of them will die and get seriously ill as a result of the vaccine.”
Farah went on to cite his evidence:
Then there is Dr. Joseph Mercola. Like others, he has pointed out that the pharmaceutical companies making billions from these vaccines have spent a good portion of those revenues on promoting their drugs to doctors, universities, health journals and, of course, the Food and Drug Administration and CDC. In the old days before the government-media complex, we used to call these payoffs.
[…]“It’s clear to me that this is another case where the precautionary principle needs to be applied, as currently no one knows exactly whether or not the vaccine will have any measurable effect as far as lowering cervical cancer rates,” says Mercola. “The results will not be fully apparent until a few decades from now, and in the meantime, countless young girls are being harmed, and we still do not know how Gardasil will affect their long-term health, even if they do not experience any acute side effects.”
He continues: “Deadly blood clots, acute respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and ‘sudden death due to unknown causes’ have all occurred in girls shortly after they’ve received the Gardasil vaccine. These are atrocious risks to potentially prevent cervical cancer one day down the road. Because let’s not forget that the HPV vaccine has not yet been PROVEN to actually prevent any kind of cancer. The benefit is just one big ‘maybe.’”
Farah doesn’t tell us who Mercola is or what is qualifications are. There’s probably a reason for that.
Quackwatch tells us that Mercola is a seller of health supplements who opposes immunization, fluoridation of water, and mammography; claims that amalgam fillings are toxic; and makes many unsubstantiated recommendations for dietary supplements. Still, his work has been promoted on the Dr. Oz TV show. On his own website, Mercola has touted Andrew Wakefield, whose research linking vaccines to autism has been discredited and withdrawn by its publisher.
According to Quackwatch, Mercola has been twice ordered by the Food and Drug Administration to stop making claims about his supplements that go beyond their intended uses. The FDA also ordered Mercola to stop making claims for thermography that go beyond what the equipment he uses.
Mercola has also seen complaints filed against him with the Better Business Bureau that his company did not honor money-back guarantees on his products, his customers have experienced unexplained delivery problems, and that Mercola’s company provided customers with shipment tracking numbers that were not valid with their respective shippers, according to Quackwatch.
Given WND’s history of fearmongering about vaccines, it’s not surprising that Farah would turn to yet another fringe figure to fearmonger some more.