NVIC and Mercola, sittin' in a tree

Some who oppose vaccination do so, at least in part, because of concerns that pharmaceutical companies make profits off of vaccines. Many recommend alternative products, including supplements, in lieu of protective vaccinations.

As such, it's a very...interesting...relationship that the anti-vaccine National Vaccine Information Center apparently has with supplement shill Mercola.com. Both sites are currently down with the following images, including Mercola's logo on both sites.

NVICmercolaCertainly it's no secret that the two organizations have worked together previously against vaccines, but this suggests more than just a casual friendship, not to mention the irony of NVIC shilling for Mercola, who's been called a "snake oil salesman" and sells items of dubious medical value via his website. Does his "Health Liberty" coalition now run NVIC's site?

 

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How can you say that? NVIC does not oppose vaccination. They just aim to provide parents with information about their risks of benefits and promote vaccine safety. (note the sarcasm font).

Excellent catch, Tara! I'd strongly suggest getting in touch with Orac here on Scienceblogs about that, and also posting it far & wide.

There are other ways of telling if those orgs have more than a casual connection, one of which I could relay to you via email if you have a public email address.

Re. Big Pharma: Where can I sign up to be a paid Pharma shill? For all the pro-SBM stuff I post in various places, you'd think someone from Big Pharma would have contacted me by now. Darn, what am I missing?;-)

The liberty-health.org site and toxicteeth.org are/were also down with the same banner.

Liberty-health is what NVIC has already admitted to being one of their funding sites - which makes Joe Mercola's grubby little fingers are dipped into a lot of pudding.

Oh my, the plot thickens like a dairy product going rotten.

Here's another investigative technique y'all should try (subject-matter expert speaking here):

First, get all the phone numbers for these organizations. Look for matching on all digits except the last four. That would indicate all phone numbers are in the same area code and exchange, thus in the same city (even if the postal addresses are different). If any additional digits match (e.g. area code plus 3-digit exchange plus one or two more counting in left-to-right order), that indicates that they are part of a Direct Inward Dialing (DID) block (a group of telephone numbers) that is owned by one business entity.

Second, try calling those numbers. Listen closely. First listen to the main company greetings (e.g. "You have reached Woo Unlimited..."): do they use the same wording or are they spoken in the same voice? If so, they were made by the same person. Second, press *(the star button on your telephone keypad) and listen for a system prompt from their voicemail system. Is it also the same in wording and voice? If so, they are likely sharing an office telephone system or service provider.

None of the above are illegal, and even pressing * to listen to voicemail system prompts does not count as hacking. What you do _not_ want to do is try entering mailbox numbers and passwords to try to get into their stored messages: that is definitely illegal hacking and a major no-no.

Go out & get 'em, tigers!

This is very strange. I'm wondering if these sites have been hacked. They may have a relationship with each other, but I don't think they're that closely related. Dr. Mercola seems to push bottons of mainstream medicine, and I've wondered how long he could go on before someone tried to stop him.

By Caddy Bryant (not verified) on 17 Mar 2014 #permalink

@#6: Right. Like Kevin Trudeau! lol.

@#6: If that had been the case, you'd better believe they would've been crying a river about the coordinated attack by Big Pharma to slander them. They kept this real quiet.

By Ken Wehrheim (not verified) on 27 Oct 2014 #permalink