Founder[edit]
Michael Allen "Mike" Adams (born 1967 in Lawrence, Kansas),[9] the self-described "Health Ranger", is the founder and owner of NaturalNews. According to his own website his interest in alternative nutrition was sparked by developing type II diabetes at the age of 30 and "completely curing" himself using natural remedies.[8] He is a raw foods enthusiast and "holistic nutritionist". He says he eats no processed foods, dairy, sugar, meat from mammals or food products containing additives such as MSG.[8]
Adams is an AIDS denialist,[10] a 9/11 truther,[11] a birther[10] and endorsed conspiracy theories surrounding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,[12] as well as surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[13] He has endorsed Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, a movie about Stanislaw Burzynski.[14] Steven Novella characterises Adams as "a dangerous conspiracy-mongering crank".[4] Adams has also written a favorable review of the pseudoscientific film House of Numbers on NaturalNews, which is reprinted on the film's website.[15]
Phil Plait accused Adams of using sockpuppet accounts to inflate vote counts in the Shorty Awards (Joseph Mercola was also accused of doing this)[16] specifically in response to a skeptical campaign to upvote Rachael Dunlop. After losing when his fraudulent votes were revoked, he posted articles criticizing the Shorty Awards.[17] Dan Berger draws alt-med cartoons for them, though Adams comes up with the concepts.
Reception[edit]
David Gorski of ScienceBlogs called the site "one of the most wretched hives of scum and quackery on the Internet," and the most "blatant purveyor of the worst kind of quackery and paranoid anti-physician and anti-medicine conspiracy theories anywhere on the Internet".[18] Peter Bowditch of the website Ratbags,[19] and Jeff McMahon writing for Forbes commented about the site.[20] Steven Novella of NeuroLogica Blog called NaturalNews "a crank alt med site that promotes every sort of medical nonsense imaginable. If it is unscientific, antiscientific, conspiracy-mongering, or downright silly, Mike Adams appears to be all for it – whatever sells the "natural" products he hawks on his site."[6]
Individuals who commented about Adams' website include astronomer and blogger Phil Plait,[21] PZ Myers,[22] and Mark Hoofnagle.[10] Brian Dunning listed it as #1 on his "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list.[23] Adams is listed as a "promoter of questionable methods" by Quackwatch.[24] Robert T. Carroll at The Skeptic's Dictionary said, "Natural News is not a very good source for information. If you don't trust me on this, go to Respectful Insolence or any of the other bloggers on ScienceBlogs and do a search for "Natural News" or "Mike Adams" (who is NaturalNews). Hundreds of entries will be found and not one of them will have a good word to say about Mike Adams as a source."[25]
After Patrick Swayze's death in 2009, Adams posted an article in which he remarked that Swayze, in dying, "joins many other celebrities who have been recently killed by pharmaceuticals or chemotherapy."[26] Commentators of Adams' article on Patrick Swayze included bloggers such as David Gorski[27] and Phil Plait, the latter of whom called Adams' commentary "obnoxious and loathsome."[28] When Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy in May 2013 because she had the BRCA1 gene, Adams stated that "Countless millions of women carry the BRCA1 gene and never express breast cancer because they lead healthy, anti-cancer lifestyles based on smart nutrition, exercise, sensible sunlight exposure and avoidance of cancer-causing chemicals."[29] Gorski called the article "vile" and noted that Adams had written similarly themed articles about the death of Michael Jackson, Tony Snow, and Tim Russert.[30]
In 2014, Brian Palmer, writing in the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois, criticized the site's promotion of alternative medicine treatments, such as bathing in Himalayan salt and eating Hijiki seaweed, and referred to the claims NaturalNews made about their efficacy as "preposterous."[31]
Shawn Lawrence Otto mentions the site, specifically its discussion of the Vioxx controversy, in his list of references in his book Fool Me Twice, and New York Times reporter Christopher Kelly has mentioned Adams' endorsement of Jim Marrs' books.[32]
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