/oss/taxonomy/term/1071/all en /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition-pseudoscience/doc-detox-tries-rewrite-all-medicine <p>If you are desperate enough, there is someone out there willing to rewrite all of medicine and relieve you of your savings. A former nurse with multiple sclerosis lost over $10,000 in this way, according to a CBC Marketplace investigation. To whom did she give this money, you may wonder? To Darrell Wolfe, who calls himself Doc of Detox.</p> Fri, 09 Aug 2024 02:14:41 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 10021 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking/fogen-effect-masks-big-methodological-issue <p>Have you heard of the Fögen effect, alternatively spelled “Foegen?” It is the idea, or so goes the claim, that wearing a mask could make COVID-19 more severe. And you might be tempted to take it seriously because it has a very scientific-sounding name. Surely, if this mechanism of action has been baptized in the scientific literature—with a German name to boot!—it must be genuine.</p> Thu, 21 Jul 2022 15:40:47 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9186 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health-pseudoscience/upside-down-doctor <p>Dr. Joe Mercola, an osteopathic physician who has made an impressive fortune selling supplements through his online store, has a new book out about the COVID-19 pandemic, a book which he co-authored with Ronnie Cummins, an organic food crusader. This book, as well as Mercola’s decades of peddling health misinformation on the Internet, exemplifies the dangerous blind spot of the wellness movement.</p> Fri, 04 Jun 2021 20:40:54 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8757 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media <p>You may have heard the myth that the COVID-19 vaccines make women infertile and that they have killed more people than the disease itself. This blatant and harmful misinformation does not appear out of nowhere on social media; it has to be crafted. Those images with the scary quotes are made by individuals who upload them to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for their followers to disseminate like mind viruses. There is something at once encouraging and deeply sad when you realize that all of this hazardous nonsense is the product of a very small group of influencers.</p> Wed, 31 Mar 2021 21:28:08 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8674 at /oss /oss/article/controversial-science-news-quackery/murky-mercola <p>If you haven’t heard of Joe Mercola, you have not been surfing the waves of health advice on the web. He is an osteopathic physician whose practice now is limited to offering mostly iffy medical advice on his website and selling a variety of questionable products. He claims his website “is not a tool to get me a bigger house and car, or to run for senate.”.</p> Tue, 30 Jun 2015 08:32:22 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2270 at /oss /oss/article/food-health-news/joe-mercola-and-foods-you-should-never-eat <p>Joe Mercola is an osteopath who runs a popular health website on which he offers all sorts of advice, mostly questionable. He also sells a huge variety of products ranging from an array of supplements to Himalayan salt, organic clothing and tanning beds. These products, like most of Mercola’s advice, are sold based on a mixture of truths, fallacies and outright absurdities, with the latter category dominating. Mercola himself is scientifically negligible, but as they say, even a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn.</p> Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:49:26 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1960 at /oss