MERCOLA

Dr. Joseph Mercola’s Battle with His State Licensing Board

In 2001, and again in 2004, I asked the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation to investigate Joseph Mercola, D.O., who operated the Optimum Wellness Center in Schaumberg, Illinois. Attaching copies of of various pages from his Web site, I asked the regulators to consider (a) whether he was engaged in misleading advertising and (b) what he and his associates were doing with patients. In June 2004, apparently in response to my concerns, the Department filed an administrative complaint that sought to discipline him for publishing “false and potentially harmful medical advice” on his site [1]. Two months later, the department—which had been renamed Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR)—expanded its complaint to object to about a dozen things: In an article titled “NEJM Study …