NaturalNews.com (formerly
Newstarget) is a website founded by
Mike "the Health Ranger" Adams. The site promotes almost every sort of medical
woo known, though it specializes in
vaccine denialism,[SUP]
[1][/SUP] AIDS/
HIV denial,[SUP]
[2][/SUP]
quack cancer medicine[SUP]
[3][/SUP] and
conspiracy theories about modern medicine.[SUP]
[4][/SUP] Even other quacks think it's a quack site.[SUP]
[5][/SUP] The site has recently expanded its outlook to become an outlet for extreme
environmentalism and conspiracy theorizing about
Obama and
gun control.
If you cite NaturalNews on any matter whatsoever, you are almost certainly wrong.
Health beliefs
Adams is a flat-out opponent[SUP]
[6][/SUP] of modern medicine and opposes any medication[SUP]
[7][/SUP] or doctor visits.[SUP]
[8][/SUP][SUP]
[9][/SUP] Adams calls himself a "holistic nutritionist"[SUP]
[10][/SUP] and is a
raw food proponent[SUP]
[11][/SUP] who opposes food that contains sugar,[SUP]
[12][/SUP] food that was cooked[SUP]
[13][/SUP] or made to last,[SUP]
[14][/SUP] "red" meat,[SUP]
[15][/SUP] sweeteners,[SUP]
[16][/SUP] glutamate,[SUP]
[17][/SUP] homogenized milk,[SUP]
[18][/SUP] bread,[SUP]
[19][/SUP] "white" flour,[SUP]
[20][/SUP] washing powder,[SUP]
[21][/SUP] deodorants,[SUP]
[22][/SUP] shampoo[SUP]
[23][/SUP] and fluoride.[SUP]
[24][/SUP]
A recurring theme is the contrast between the site's exacting criticism of
evidence-based medicine and its unquestioning acceptance of the
appeal to nature,
New Age and
alternative medicine.[SUP]
[25][/SUP] This often involves rejection of the
scientific method's application to medicine as "inherently flawed",[SUP]
[26][/SUP] repudiating the entire philosophy of modern medicine post-
Pasteur.[SUP]
[27][/SUP] Adams is a firm
germ theory denialist.[SUP]
[28][/SUP][SUP]
[29][/SUP][SUP]
[30][/SUP] Adams also conflates evidence-based medicine in general, the failings of
Big Pharma and the US health insurance system: to him, it's all a monolithic entity called "mainstream medicine".[SUP]
[31][/SUP] The site blames the pharmaceutical industry for all vaguely drug-linked celebrity deaths rather than looking at any surrounding factors.[SUP]
[32][/SUP][SUP]
[33][/SUP][SUP]
[34][/SUP][SUP]
[35][/SUP]
The response to any alternative medicine claim, however, is blind acceptance, whether the topic at hand is
homeopathy,[SUP]
[36][/SUP]
chiropractic,[SUP]
[37][/SUP]
dental woo,[SUP]
[38][/SUP]
aspartame scares,[SUP]
[39][/SUP]
vitamin woo,[SUP]
[40][/SUP]
anti-vaccination panic[SUP]
[41][/SUP][SUP]
[42][/SUP] or
detox diets.[SUP]
[43][/SUP]
[h=2][
edit] Medical conspiracy theories[/h]NaturalNews also features many
Big Pharma conspiracy theories.[SUP]
[44][/SUP][SUP]
[45][/SUP] There is no depth Big Pharma will not sink to, no
lie too big for them to tell, in order to poison American citizens and cover up their "junk science."[SUP]
[46][/SUP] Adams claims that the “pharmaceutical industry” is creating HIV vaccines with the
sole purpose of creating as many “HIV positive people” as possible to sell anti-retroviral drugs to at a huge profit.[SUP]
[47][/SUP] Mammographic screening creates cancer, which is then expensively treated for big profit.[SUP]
[48][/SUP][SUP]
[49][/SUP][SUP]
[50][/SUP][SUP]
[51][/SUP] He considers that
chemotherapy warrants criminal prosecution.[SUP]
[52][/SUP][SUP]
[53][/SUP][SUP]
[54][/SUP]
There's also usually a front page article about how some loophole in an obscure new law or regulation will enable alternative medicine or natural supplements to
be banned forever!
More recent conspiracy theories claim that Bill Gates and Microsoft are in the process of developing weaponized, ethnically-targeted influenza viruses as part of a sinister eugenics plot.[SUP]
[55][/SUP] Adams also manages to misinterpret attempts to develop reversible forms of
male contraceptives as deliberate attempts to permanently sterilize minorities.[SUP]
[56][/SUP]
His reaction to Angelina Jolie's preventive double mastectomy due to having the BRCA1 gene mutation was predictable; the quoted 87% probability that she would come down with breast cancer was irrelevant, since diet and lifestyle changes can magically suppress BRCA1 expression. And of course,
oncologists are cast as the quacks here, not fine upstanding people like Adams.[SUP]
[57][/SUP][SUP]
[58][/SUP]
[h=2][
edit] Non-medical conspiracy theories[/h]Adams' love for woo isn't restricted to medicine.
Cold fusion and so-called
free energy ideas and devices like the
Energy Catalyzer are presented on his website with the same enthusiasm as the latest alternative medicine fad.[SUP]
[59][/SUP][SUP]
[60][/SUP] He collects news about
chemtrails.[SUP]
[61][/SUP] He is a
9/11 truther[SUP]
[62][/SUP],
birther,[SUP]
[63][/SUP] and pretty much
everything else-er. And a
Sandy Hook denialist.[SUP]
[64][/SUP] He considers
Alex Jones,
Jeff Rense, and
David Icke to be "REAL heroes"[SUP]
[65][/SUP] and Icke[SUP]
[66][/SUP] and
whale.to[SUP]
[67][/SUP] to be reliable sources. Naturally, he supports
Ron Paul and "
health freedom",[SUP]
[68][/SUP] despite simultaneously supporting health care reform and Cuba's health care system. [SUP]
[69][/SUP]
He thinks
Scientology (of which he is an ex-member) is treated unfairly.[SUP]
[70][/SUP][SUP]
[71][/SUP][SUP]
[72][/SUP] According to Adams, this is due to attempts by anti-religious bigots and (you guessed it)
Big Pharma to oppress their belief system in order to protect their profits.
Adams has also issued his informed opinion of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado
"Batman" shootings, declaring that they were "obviously" staged, or perhaps that the killer, James Holmes, was involved in "experimental" neuroscience that got out of hand.[SUP]
[73][/SUP] Furthermore, also the 2013 attacks on the Boston marathon is reported to be a false flag operation by "private military contractors".[SUP]
[74][/SUP]
Also, "conventional
physics" is a conspiracy of the same sort as conventional medicine.[SUP]
[75][/SUP]
[h=2][
edit] 2013 predictions[/h]At the end of 2012, Adams put up a list of 20 "dark" predictions about 2013, which he believes to be "1984 on steroids". Watch out, because if Adams is right (and that's a big
if, considering his predictions for 2012[SUP]
[76][/SUP]), the following were predicted to happen:[SUP]
[77][/SUP]
- Global economic collapse: "When record-low tax revenues are reported in April because of Obama's planned destruction of the U.S. economy, ratings organizations will downgrade U.S. debt, setting off a global selloff that could thrust America into a "nightmare" scenario of being unable to sell more debt"
- "Obama administration attempts to gut the Second Amendment".
- "Martial Law declared across America"
- "Extreme shortages of guns, ammo, magazines as their barter value skyrockets"
- "Tactical weapon strikes target Iran"
- "Massive false flag attack carried out in USA and blamed on patriots"
- "DHS arms the TSA and begins insane abuses of Americans on roadway checkpoints"
- "Secret resistance groups begin to form across America" (which will be easy to verify, given that secret groups are usually well-documented, right?)
- "Attacks on the First Amendment accelerate as government seizes websites" (at least, the government will shut down NaturalNews and Alex Jones' Infowars site, apparently)
- "The rise of violent rhetoric among the population as disagreements turn to threats"
- "Global government makes its move" – "Expect to see UN troops in U.S. cities before the end of 2015. The planned rollout of conflict in the USA is going to be followed by UN troops arriving on the scene to "rescue" the USA."
- "Accelerated mainstream media attacks on patriots, preppers and veterans" – because self-declared patriots are all peaceful people.
- "Disagreement with the government characterized a "mental disorder""
- "Continued rise in unemployment, food stamps, welfare as Obama accelerates deliberate destruction of U.S. economy"
- "Criminalization of preparedness activities as government outlaws ammo storage of private citizens"
- "Riots in the streets, followed by Martial Law"
- "Deliberate food shortages used as a weapon of government control"
- "Weather becomes even more radicalized, with droughts, floods, freezes"
- "Solar weather gets nasty: Solar flares threaten communications"
- "You will be told the answer to all our problems is "MORE government!""
Twitter silliness In 2010, Adams was in the running for the Shorty Awards, basically a popularity contest for
Twitter users. He had the most votes in the health category, and his fellow lunatic
Joseph Mercola was closely behind. Skeptics decided to vote up Rachel Dunlop, a skeptic and doctor based in Australia.[SUP]
[82][/SUP][SUP]
[83][/SUP]
Eventually, Dunlop got to the top of the health charts. Adams and Mercola threw an Internet shit-fit and went vote-canvassing. Hundreds of their supporters turned up and set up new accounts to vote. Those votes were promptly disqualified as only
existing accounts were allowed to vote. Adams was briefly put back into pole position, but then was disqualified after the fraudulent votes were removed. He got really angry about this.
Shortly thereafter, Adams childishly posted a list of all the terrible things he believes that skeptics believe on NaturalNews, including:
“”Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs. In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more -- simultaneously!
Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines
|
It's coming.
