Natural News’ Mike Adams libelously attacks Science-Based Medicine’s David Gorski

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One of the most respected online voices for science-based thinking—oncologist and science literacy advocate David Gorski—is under vicious attack from one of the leading pseudo-science promoters on the Internet, Mike Adams, founder and chief writer on NaturalNews.com. You may never have heard of the site if you are not familiar with the fringe world of homeopathy, vaccine denial, chemtrails and the like.

NaturalNews is a natural products website that campaigns against GMOs, vaccines, fluoridated water and just about every technological and public health advance science has brought us (Read the GLP profile of Adams and Natural News here). Steven Novella of NeuroLogica Blog called NaturalNews “a crank alt med site that promotes every sort of medical nonsense imaginable” and his website been called the #1 quack destinations in cyberspace ad he gets top billing on the wackos gallery website. As wacky and anti-science as its articles may be, is one of the top 3,000 websites in the US, and ranked 6,485 globally by Alexa (which tracks web traffic data). Adams has clout, of the most dangerous variety.

Adams regularly goes on the attack against dozens of well known scientists and science promoters. Bill Gates is a particular target—he calls him one of the most destructive do-gooders in the world—because he supports vaccinations and wants to maximize the role of technology in jump starting a new green revolution in Africa. He’s attacked Magic Johnson for supporting medicine-based treatment of HIV. And he’s urged the killing of journalists and scientists who write balanced pieces about crop biotechnology, calling them akin to Nazi collaborators. He often partners with another well known quack, Dr. Joe Mercola and has had guest stints on Dr. Oz.

Now he’s targeting Dr. Gorski. He is a Professor of surgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine and a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, specializing in breast cancer surgery. But he’s equally renowned for his selfless work as writer and managing editor of the website Science-Based Medicine, where he campaigns against alternative medicine, focusing on a range of issues including the anti-vaccination advocacy groups and, at times, the anti-GMO movement.

Adams went after the wrong guy. Gorski has previously written numerous articles about Adams—indeed he has called him “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.” This time he responds to a coordinated massive Adams assault—one not seen since Adams went after me (Jon Entine) beginning in 2014—one that continues.

David asked that I briefly share my reflections on what has happened to me along with presenting excerpts of his response to Adams, which ran on his site in late April. Two years ago, I wrote a series of exposes about NaturalNews.com (here is a summary of some of the stories and responses it generated in the journalism world). Adams has responded with an ongoing vicious campaign against me and the Genetic Literacy Project, among them:

  • threatening me and various publications that have carried critical articles of him with law suits for supposedly libeling him (response: take a hike Mike)
  • posting false and misleading personal and professional information about me (and other science supporters and scientists) on NaturalNews, as well as on the 30-odd other websites that he oversees, such as TruthWiki and Propagandists
  • posting these negative articles and links on thousands of dummy sites to increase Google rankings, so his quack views and attacks show up high in searches

It’s been frustrating at times. It’s not hard to recognize how wacky his views are when you read his postings, but as any propagandist would tell you, repeating lies, no matter how blatant, can take a toll. Which is why David Gorski’s response is so important to read and share. Excerpts of it are below. The full response can be found at Science Based Medicine, here.

******

I decided to write this post for Science-Based Medicine because I’ve taken notice of recent posts Mike Adams has written about me, mainly because they are riddled with misinformation, fabrications, and lies.

Before I get into the really nasty stuff, let’s look at the stupid stuff. … Adams really does seem to think that I have massive power over what Wikipedia does and does not publish about vaccines and medicine!

He uses such fabricated stories as tools to fire up his gullible and stupid followers. … I laughed out loud when I read that Arianna Huffington and I “are not directly murdering children, but they are doing everything in their power to kill any truthful discussion about vaccine damage (that might save children)” and then this:

Gorski is one of an ever-shrinking fringe group of Vaccine Holocaust Denialists who show increasing desperation as the truth about vaccines continues to emerge. The VAXXED documentary showcases CDC scientist and whistleblower Dr. William Thompson, who publicly confessed to committing scientific fraud at the CDC to hide links between vaccines and autism. Yet the Wikipedia entry on VAXXED, authored in large part by [him], according to reports, deliberately misrepresents the subject matter and focus of the film, characterizing it as “anti-vaccine propaganda.”

Adams can’t resist undermining his own attacks with his utterly unhinged rhetoric. This passage, even though in a post in which he referred to me as mentally ill and needing psychiatric help, was especially hilarious, particularly given that Adams is rumored to have been associated at one time with the Church of Scientology. His previous anti-psychiatry rants are inconsistent with this rant:

I’ve offered to use my science lab to test [his] urine for heavy metals in order to help him pinpoint possible sources of lead or mercury poisoning — two toxic metals known to contribute to mental illness. Don’t forget that Gorski lives near Detroit, Michigan, where the lead poisoning of the water supply was allowed to continue for over a year due to EPA and Michigan government malfeasance. Was he poisoned by lead? Or was his mind already deranged before the lead came along? There’s no way to know the answer without some testing, and it’s unlikely that Gorski will volunteer to participate in such tests. People who are infested with intense evil and hatred almost never see it themselves. They are consumed by it but it feels “normal” to them, so they think there’s something wrong with everybody else, never suspecting the severity of their own mental illness.

I guess Adams is for psychiatry when it allows him to attack his perceived enemies but against it otherwise. Remember, this is a guy who blamed psychiatric medications for Adam Lanza’s mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School and has in generalportrayed psychiatric medications as ineffective, harmful, and even the cause of crimes as bad as mass murder.

The above passage parodies itself, as do the rest of Adams’ posts about me. Indeed, as I said above, Adams’ writings say far more about him than they do about me, the Karmanos Cancer Institute, or Wayne State University. I expect this sort of behavior from cranks like Adams directed at me. It distresses me that Adams would be dishonest enough to try to slime my employers. Of course, Adams knows that. That’s exactly why he did it. He’s a bully.

For the complete post by David Gorski, click here.

 

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