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NaturalNews (formerly Newstarget) is a website dedicated to alternative medicine and various conspiracy theories, such as "chemtrails", the alleged dangers of fluoride in drinking water (as well as those of MSG and aspartame) and alleged health problems caused by "toxic" ingredients in vaccines, including the now-discredited link to autism.

It features guest authors such as Joseph Mercola and anti-vaccinationist Jon Rappoport and has featured interviews with Russell Blaylock, Sandor Katz and others. It defends Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 study linking autism to vaccinations and is also outspoken against gun control, TSA screening procedures, GMOs, and claims that CT scans and mammograms cause cancer. It claims that mercury fillings are dangerous and need to be removed, and defends Scientology, but its primary purpose is the promotion of alternative medicine and (often controversial) nutrition claims.

An article about conspiracy theories about the 2012 Aurora shooting in the Los Angeles Times mentioned an article on NaturalNews outlining such a conspiracy theory.

Mike Adams

Michael Allen "Mike" Adams, (born 1967 in Lawrence, Kansas) 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. He is a raw foods enthusiast and "holistic nutritionist". He eats no processed foods, dairy, sugar, meat from mammals or food products containing additives such as MSG and has also contributed to Infowars.com.

Adams is an AIDS denialist, a 9/11 truther, a birther and endorses conspiracy theories surrounding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has endorsed Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, a movie about Stanislaw Burzynski. Steven Novella characterises Adams as "a dangerous conspiracy-mongering crank"

Phil Plait accused Adams of using sockpuppet accounts to inflate vote counts in the Shorty Awards (Joseph Mercola was also accused of doing this) specifically in response to a skeptical campaign to upvote Dr. Rachel Dunlop. After he lost as a result of having his fraudulent votes revoked, he posted a number of articles criticizing the Shorty Awards. Dan Berger draws alt-med cartoons for them, though Adams comes up with the concepts.

Criticism

Among its most outspoken critics are David Gorski of ScienceBlogs, who has called it "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", as well as Peter Bowditch of the website Ratbags, and Jeff McMahon writing for Forbes. Steven Novella has 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.".

Other critics of Adams' website include astronomer and blogger Phil Plait, PZ Myers, Mark Hoofnagle and Brian Dunning, who listed it as #1 on his "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list. Adams is listed as a "promoter of questionable methods" by Quackwatch and Robert T. Carroll at The Skeptic's Dictionary has 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."

Adams frequently posts articles regarding celebrities with medical problems; for example, 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." Critics of this particular article included bloggers such as David Gorski and Phil Plait, the latter of whom called Adams' commentary "obnoxious and loathsome." Similarly, when Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy in May 2013 because she had the BRCA1 gene, Adams asserted 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." This article by Adams was met with criticism by Gorski, who called it "vile" and noted that Adams had written similarly themed articles about the death of Michael Jackson, Tony Snow, and Tim Russert.

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.

Mentions by scientists

Brian Dunning, as noted above, pointed out that NaturalNews is very influential, saying "For its frighteningly large influence, and abysmal quality of information, it earns the #1 spot on this list ." This influence has led peer-reviewed papers to mention it, for example,

• Wayne Parrott of the University of Georgia in the journal New Biotechnology wrote an article defending genetically modified food and, as an example of the allegations he was addressing, included a NaturalNews article.
• Maureen Watson et al. wrote an article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health regarding the HPV vaccine Gardasil in South Australia, and used this article as an example of fear-mongering on this topic.
• Neil Seeman et al. in the Canadian journal Healthcare Quarterly published a study called "Assessing and Responding in Real Time to Online Anti-vaccine Sentiment during a Flu Pandemic." NaturalNews has a long history of criticizing the flu vaccine as ineffective and dangerous. In appendix 1, they outline 20 search results about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine; an article on NaturalNews appeared as #16 on the list.

References

1. Denying Chemtrails is dangerous for your health
2. http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-aurora-victims-conspiracy-20130207,0,5313001.story
3. http://www.healthranger.com/Health-Ranger-Biography.html
4. Media and Press Information
5. Naturalnews: Media and Press Information
6. Mike Adams Takes On “Skeptics”, Steven Novella
7. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/23/alt-med-guy-whacked-with-shorty-end-of-the-stick/#.UUUFFBeG2So
8. http://www.naturalnews.com/028006_Shorty_Awards_vote_fraud.html
9. Search Results for NaturalNews on Respectful Insolence
10. A fungus among us in oncology?
11. Natural News
12. Does Natural News do Cover-Ups?
13. H1N1 Vaccine and Miscarriages – More Fear Mongering
14. Mike Adams fails again: Astrology Edition
15. Mike Adams: Pretentious Git, Slandering Liar
16. Hoofnagle, Mark (1 April 2013). "Natural News' Mike Adams Adds Global Warming Denialism to HIV/AIDS denial, Anti-vax, Altie-med, Anti-GMO, Birther Crankery". ScienceBlogs. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
17. Top 10 Worst Anti Science Websites
18. Promoters of Questionable Methods and/or Advice
19. Sources: How the WWW allows one person to seem to be many sources--The Eileen Danneman Story
20. http://www.naturalnews.com/027030_cancer_chemotherapy_Patrick_Swayze.html#ixzz2fy6ZtE00
21. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/16/a-religious-loon-cant-even-wait-until-he/
22. Plait, Phil (25 September 2009). "Alt med ghouls". Discover (magazine). Retrieved 25 September 2013.
23. Adams, Mike (15 May 2013). "Angelina Jolie inspires women to maim themselves by celebrating medically perverted double mastectomies". NaturalNews. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
24. Gorski, David (15 May 2013). "The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie". ScienceBlogs. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
25. Thinking Beyond the Creationists and the Darwinists
26. Parrott W (2010). "Genetically Modified Myths and Realities". New Biotechnology. 27 (5): 545–551. doi:10.1016/j.nbt.2010.05.016. PMID 20609417. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
27. Watson M; Shaw, Douglas; Molchanoff, Luda; McInnes, Cathy (2009). "Challenges, lessons learned and results following the implementation of a human papilloma virus school vaccination program in South Australia". Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 33 (4): 365–370. doi:10.1111/j.1753-6405.2009.00409.x. PMID 19689598. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
28. Specifically, this one
29. Seeman N, Ing A and Rizo C (2010). "Assessing and Responding in Real Time to Online Anti-vaccine Sentiment during a Flu Pandemic". Healthcare Quarterly. 13: 8–15. PMID 20959725.

External links

• NaturalNews

• Alternative medicine
• Medical websites
• Pseudoscience