The thing that bothers me most about Joseph Mercola, the osteopath whose site I criticized in my latest BusinessWeek.com column, is his hypocrisy. He rails on against the tactics of Big Pharma and the medical establishment, and then he employs questionable tactics of his own to feed his business machine.
It’s easy to say that if Big Pharma is underhanded in its marketing tactics, sellers of nutritional supplements can do the same thing. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but I think the purveyors of nutritional supplements and related products need to operate at a higher level. Even though such products have been around longer than Big Pharma’s, the sellers of complementary products and services are the new kids on the block so far as much of the American public is concerned. Most people have been brainwashed since they were children about the supposed miracles of Big Pharma.
The growing number of consumers nervous about Big Pharma’s track record of dangerous and addictive products are open to new possibilities. But when they encounter healthcare practitioners like Dr. Mercola, who appear to operate pretty much like the average automatic-slicer-gadget pitchman, they quickly become skeptical. As well they should.
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