Natural News - One-Stop Shopping For All Forms Of Quackery, And How Its Owner Profits Thereby
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Over the years, Adams has expressed a wide range of unpredictable and unorthodox views that span the ideological spectrum. His belief that poisonous vaccines are nothing more than a plot by “Big Pharma” to drum up corporate profits is joined by a conviction that 9/11 was an inside job, a faith that onions, garlic and cauliflower will cure cancer, and a confidence that the James Holmes/Aurora shooting in the summer of 2012 was staged by the FBI in order to justify a United Nations plot to disarm American citizens. Other published by Adams and his staff warn, “U.S. School District To Begin Microchipping Students” and “Forced Vaccinations, Quarantine Camps, Health Care Interrogations and Mandatory ‘Decontaminations’” Time and again, Adams has found a way to foster and monetize the most current fear gripping the cultural zeitgeist.
By the measure of scientific experts and historians, Adams’ views are fringe. Dr. David Gorski, Managing Editor of the website Science-Based Medicine, calls Natural News, “a one-stop shop, a repository if you will, of virtually every quackery known to humankind, all slathered with a heaping helping of unrelenting hostility to science-based medicine and science in general.” And yet, Adams is emblematic of a growing cadre of anti-science spokespeople who have cultivated significant influence and followings. How has Adams achieved this? The answer goes back nearly two decades, and highlights many of the means by which digital snake oil salesmen build their brands.
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While the exact nature of Adams’ current web traffic is difficult to parse, much of Natural News’ prominence appears built on the back of common “black hat” SEO tactics that are generally considered unethical by search engines. The tactic artificially inflates search rankings by grouping together many websites that reference back to one another, in what are known as link farms. In one apparent example of this, the IP address for Adams’ site Consumer Wellness Center hosts 86 other addresses, all of which are similar in content and design to Natural News. Among the pages in this grouping are BioDefense (which was launched in early September at the outset of the Ebola scare, and which serves as a receptacle for wisdom on how to keep the disease at bay) and CesiumEliminator (which claims to sell products that will protect people from the dangerous fallout of Chernobyl and Fukushima). Both of these liberally link back to Natural News, identifying that site and its pseudo-science as justification for their existence.
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Adams’ internet biography mentions that he holds a Bachelor in Science, but fails to identify the awarding institution, describing it simply as a “prominent university in the Midwest.” It does, however, highlight that, “in college entrance exams and graduate school entrance exams, Adams scored in the 99.9th percentile across all U.S. students,” and that he, “aced the English, Mathematics and Science sections of college entrance exams, scoring 100% on 3 out of 4 sections earning numerous offers of scholarships from various universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (which he chose not to attend).” However, M.I.T. financial aid has been entirely need based since the 1960’s. Ironically, that same page also brags that Adams was, “the first and only investigative journalist to expose the fake academic credentials of raw food ‘guru’ Aajonus Vonderplanitz.” Natural News notes 2055 N. Kolb Rd, Suite 131, Tucson, Arizona as its latest place of business. However, according to the building’s owners, Natural News left that location in 2012, and the address is currently occupied by a chiropractor. The site’s privacy page lists its “postmaster” as residing at a UPS Store. Via a press handler, Mike Adams refused repeated offers to comment on this story, claiming that he was declining all interview requests over the next six months in order to either focus on his new “EMP-proof technology rollout,” or concentrate on the launch of a new website that vaguely promises to showcase “a series of groundbreaking ‘low-tech’ inventions for humanity.”
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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/03/10/3628921/health-ranger/
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Last edited Wed Mar 11, 2015, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Which, of course, it wasn't.
It was all about this libertarian assclown in central Oregon who had built DAMS on his own property to trap and divert a stream and runoff, which, BTW, is illegal as hell in western states, unless you have senior water rights AND all kinds of permitting, EIS and so forth.
But no that wasn't the Natural News story - it was the heroic, persecuted landowner standing up to the Jack-Booted Thugs (tm) of the federal government. 
