With Huffington Post Sold to AOL, NaturalNews Invites top Alternative Health Authors to Join Truly Independent News Network

By Mike Adams

For related articlesand more information, please visit OCA's Health page, and our Politics and Democracy page.

The Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315 million yesterday, meaning the site, which was once the darling of independent media, is now clearly positioned as institutionalized media. As the editor of NaturalNews, I have, over the last several months, received several concerning emails from credentialed medical writers and natural health authors whose stories were dropped from consideration for publication at Huffington Post. There was a rising sense of frustration long before this sale that seemed to indicate HuffPost was headed in the direction of conventional media.

Yesterday's sale to AOL merely confirms this. AOL, of course, is the recent spin-off of Time Warner, which also owns CNN, Warner Bros., TIME, HBO, Fortune, People, and a long list of other mainstream media giants (http://www.cjr.org/resources/index....). There is a tremendous amount of concern reverberating across the 'net that the HuffPost acquisition by AOL will turn the site into just another conformist, watered-down corporate mouthpiece.

Many of the site's best writers are wondering where they can go to get their alternative medicine stories published. It certainly isn't WebMD, which even the New York Times just called out as being a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry, saying "WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling". (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/m...) 

It's a good time to be truly independent

As it happens, NaturalNews is, just this month, launching a format change that will make NaturalNews.com more like what the Huffington Post used to be: A collection of stories from independent thinkers, grassroots authors and people who challenge the status quo. A site where intelligence takes precedence over conformity, and where authors and writers who question the status quo are welcomed... and even featured!

Beginning today, NaturalNews is actively welcoming credentialed writers and op-ed authors who wish to be featured on NaturalNews.com as part of our new format which places more emphasis on featured contributing writers. We especially welcome former Huffington Post writers who want to be part of a truly independent, yet well-established health news site that already reaches millions of readers each month.

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WebMD, Not the Independent Health Source You Expected

In a shocking report published earlier this year, BNET exposed how WebMD's online test for depression is rigged for profit:

"Feeling depressed? Cheer yourself up by taking WebMD's comical new depression test.

It's sponsored by Eli Lilly (LLY) - maker of the antidepressant Cymbalta - so they must know what they're talking about, right?

In fact, no matter which of the 10 answers you choose on the test, the result comes out the same:

You may be at risk for major depression."

But that's just the beginning. A number of questions about just how 'independent' a source WebMD is have since surfaced, and the answers are not what you'd expect. Sources: BNET February 22, 2010 BNET February 26, 2010 Policy and Medicine February 24, 2010 Boston.com March 2, 2010

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

This entire story reminds me of the old adage, "with friends like that, who needs enemies?"

If you didn't already know this, WebMD is the second most visited health web site on the entire web. The general belief is that it's a first-rate, trustworthy source of "independent and objective" information about health.

In fact, the only health site more popular than WebMD is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). You also might not realize that earlier this year Mercola.com, moved up to the third most visited health site on the internet. Mercola.com has been the most visited natural health site in the world for the last five years. 


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Independent Testing Finds Toxic Contaminants In San Francisco's Sludge "Compost"

By John Stauber, John Mayer, Dr. Michael Hansen
PR Newswire, August 8, 2010
Straight to the Source

WASHINGTON -- After 14 years of work, unceasing attacks from critics, and a $50 million investment without a penny of profit, a small New England biotech company stands on the doorstep of history - seemingly poised to join agriculture's "green revolution" as a game-changer in feeding the world.

Or not.

With global population pressing against food supplies and vast areas of the  ocean already swept clean of fish, tiny AquaBounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass., has developed a variety of salmon that reaches market weight in half the time of other salmon.

What's more, AquaBounty not only promises to slash the ready-for-market time - and production costs -- on a hugely popular, nutritious fish that currently commands near-record prices, it plans to avoid the pollution, disease and other problems associated with today's salt-water fish farms by having its salmon raised inland.

But there's a catch: AquaBounty's salmon is genetically engineered. Indeed, it aspires to be the nation's first genetically-modified food animal of any kind.

That means the Food and Drug Administration must approve it. It also means the company and its salmon must withstand vociferous opposition from environmental and other advocacy groups, win over skeptical producers and -- possibly most difficult of all - overcome potential consumer resistance to genetic tinkering with food.   


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