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Since when did a green magazine promote Ebola vaccines and publish articles by vaccine makers like Paul "Profit" Offit?

This might be the most difficult piece I ever write.

You see, the minute I hit enter and this article goes live, I can pretty much be assured I'll never write a piece for one of the biggest natural "green" health sites in the world: Mind Body Green aka MBG.

Mind Body Green

Haven't heard of them? Well they've got over 2.5 million fans on their Facebook page, which is more than any other health site I know in existence. Their Alexa traffic ranking is off the charts and climbing every day. Having monitored web traffic for a living (more exciting than it sounds), I can almost guarantee they'll surpass the top health sites out there fairly soon. Even the ones run by people very close to me and near and dear to my heart.

I admit, I've subscribed to their newsletter for some time, and I get the perfect looking updates with the pretty, perfect large file size stock photos of perfect smiling young models, which most often have nothing to do with the story content. But no matter, they get people to click, and some would say that's all that counts.

I have to do what's right in my heart though. Even if I have been hoodwinked into reading some of their mesmerizing headlines with models with the come hither looks - This is about principle. This is about integrity. So let's get down to the facts.

I first noticed Mind Body Green's pro vaccine stance when I saw this piece published just recently about Melinda Gates and Ebola. MBG's headline for their piece was "Melinda Gates Has The Right Idea About How To Address Ebola (Video)". The piece goes on to tell how the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation has given a whopping 50 million dollars toward the Ebola outbreak - the "single biggest emergency health grant the foundation has ever made". They then share a video where (no surprise) one of the first words to come out of Melinda Gates' mouth in the very first question she is asked is that we need to work on drugs and VACCINES for Ebola. That's right folks. So why is Mind Body Green promoting a video where Bill Gates' wife is talking about giving a cool 50 million, and in the same breath she says we must find the right drugs and vaccines for Ebola? I thought Mind Body Green was a natural green website.


I posted this on my site and a few doctors (and even one amazing attorney in the vaccine safety movement) wrote to tell me that's just the tip of the MBG iceberg. They actually have had the devil himself (as far as the vaccine safety movement is concerned), Dr. Paul "Profit" Offit write a piece for Mind Body Green. The comments on his article are scathing. But I'll get to that in a minute - with a link.

Mind Body Green Contradiction

Back to the ass-kissing Bill Gates Ebola vaccine piece: I immediately notice the article is written by Allie White. Allie is the Fitness, Beauty, and Relationships editor for MBG. How do I know this? Because it's the first sentence in her bio. She also says how she's "jazzed about eating fresh, organic produce" (hey we like that), and talks of her myriad Yoga poses (cool, we dig). So I guess someone can be an organic food loving Yogi for a Green magazine, and still feature stories with videos that praise the idea of getting to work on those Ebola vaccines. Allie also writes an article that I see about how eating certain foods simply do NOT make you feel better. She even has a study where some docs or scientists say they've proven this. I know the power of food and have my own thoughts, but actually Allie's stories don't bother me nearly as much as the next one I see at the very top of the list when I search for "vaccines".

This one is written by Dr. Barbara Caspar -- all these women writing for a green magazine that seem to be pro vaccine! It's very disheartening!

Dr. Caspar's first sentence in her article would scare the bejesus out of most of the general public. She says, "As a physician working with underserved populations, I see dozens of people die from flu and flu-related complications every year. Because of this, I wanted to explain why I recommend the flu shot to many of my patients".

Well heck, at least she only recommends it to "many" of her patients and not every single last one. That's a start right Barbara? (I digress.)

Barbara goes on to give some numbers of people who died from smallpox a long time ago, and talk about breakouts of infectious diseases. Interestingly, she talks a lot about a handful of kids in Syria (all ten of them) who got polio in a country riddled with war and devastation (which is horrid of course). Oddly she also goes on to say she had measles, rubella, and the chicken pox, and is just fine and besides a tiny scar she "experienced few lasting consequences".

Needless to say, the comments are from mostly very angry natural GREEN magazine readers who are not happy, and they dissect her article and pretty much tear it apart. But I saved the real clincher for last. I've only done a few minutes of searching on the site to find this, and can only imagine if I dig deeper what I might find on Mind Body Vaccine (er I mean Green).

Dr. "Profit"

Last but not least, we have Dr. Paul "profit" Offit. Even mainstream news has reported on his profits from vaccines, and some call him the most hated figure by the "anti-vaxxers."

I was surprised how poorly written his article is. I never thought the man was stupid. Many say greedy and selfish, but not dumb. No surprise though, the comments are absolutely scathing and livid as they say how he doesn't know the first thing about nutrition. Here is his piece called The only 4 Supplements Healthy People *might* Consider Taking. (I'm not a huge supplement fan myself, but really?)

Check out the comments at the bottom. The readers really ripped Dr. Profit (er Offit) a new one.

I know my sources I can trust for real natural health information that I believe in. And I'll read those instead, and continue to write those articles instead. You won't ever hear me telling you go to run out and get your flu shot (or Ebola vaccine when those come out). You won't see me telling you that I don't think certain foods can affect your mood -- they sure affect mine! Nor will I write any dribble about supplements, like a vaccine doctor and developer like Profit attempted to do. Boy, did that backfire -- you think MBG would have learned.

So no matter how many times I've been sucked in by the pretty images with the young smiling models, I now know I cannot trust that this is going to be a truly "Green" message at all. I might write a follow up on this when I have time to dig more. But in the meantime when I see those seductive little headlines come slithering into my inbox, I'll just hit the delete button and move on.