Browse all documented quacks.

Alex Jones

criticalconspiracy theoriesanti-vaccine

Alex Jones is the founder of InfoWars and arguably the most prominent conspiracy theorist in America, whose claims about vaccines, autism, government mind control, and the Sandy Hook shooting being a hoax led to a $1.4 billion defamation judgment against him. He funds his conspiracy empire primarily

Andreas Kalcker

criticalMMSchlorine dioxide

Andreas Kalcker is a German national residing in Switzerland who promotes chlorine dioxide (industrial bleach) as a cure for cancer, AIDS, autism, COVID-19, hepatitis, and virtually all other diseases under the name 'CDS.' His claimed PhD comes from an unaccredited degree mill. He has been arrested

Andrew Wakefield

criticalanti-vaccineMMR fraud

Andrew Wakefield is a British former physician who published a now-retracted and fraudulent 1998 study falsely claiming the MMR vaccine causes autism, triggering a global vaccine scare that resulted in measles outbreaks and preventable deaths. His medical license was revoked by the UK General Medica

Andrew Weil

mediumintegrative-medicinealternative-medicine

Andrew Weil is a Harvard-trained physician who founded the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and became the most academically credentialed figure to mainstream alternative medicine in the United States. While holding legitimate medical credentials, he has been criticized by the editors of the

Anthony William

highmedical-mediumcelery-juice

Anthony William, known as the Medical Medium, is an American author and wellness personality who claims to receive medical knowledge through communication with a 'Spirit of Compassion' he has heard since age four. He has no medical, nutritional, or scientific credentials of any kind. His celery juic

Barbara Loe Fisher

highanti-vaccineNVIC

Barbara Loe Fisher is the co-founder and long-time president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the oldest and most influential anti-vaccine lobby in the United States. She holds no medical credentials, but has spent over four decades lobbying against vaccine requirements, co-authori

Barbara O'Neill

criticalnaturopathycancer-misinformation

Barbara O'Neill is an Australian alternative health promoter who ran Misty Mountain Lifestyle Retreat with her husband while presenting herself as a qualified naturopath. In September 2019, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission permanently banned her from providing any health services, finding s

Benny Hinn

highfaith-healertelevangelist

Benny Hinn is an Israeli-born American televangelist whose 'Miracle Crusades' fill stadiums globally with promises that faith can heal cancer, AIDS, blindness, and paralysis through his touch. Investigations by the Los Angeles Times, NBC Dateline, CBC, and Australia's 60 Minutes found no independent

Bob Sears

highanti-vaccinepediatrician

Dr. Bob Sears is a California pediatrician from the famous Sears parenting family who published The Vaccine Book in 2007, promoting an 'alternative vaccine schedule' that delays and spaces out childhood vaccines without any scientific evidence of safety or efficacy. The book sold over 180,000 copies

Brian Clement is the co-director of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, operating under fraudulent doctoral credentials from a diploma mill. He promotes raw food, wheatgrass, and unproven supplements as cancer treatments, and was linked to the death of Makayla Sault, a First Nations girl wi

Bruce Lipton

mediumepigeneticsbiology-of-belief

Bruce Lipton is a former cell biologist with legitimate early research credentials who has spent the past three decades promoting the claim that beliefs and consciousness can reprogram DNA and cure disease, a claim his own field of epigenetics does not support. He has not published original peer-rev

Caroline Myss is a five-time New York Times bestselling author who promotes 'medical intuition' — the claimed ability to diagnose illness remotely through perception of a patient's energy field. Her Ph.D. in 'Intuition and Energy Medicine' was conferred by Greenwich University, a now-defunct, never-

Chris Wark

highcancer-survivorinfluencer

Chris Wark is a cancer survivor who had surgery for stage 3 colon cancer in 2003 but declined adjuvant chemotherapy, turning instead to diet and alternative therapies. He now runs a large commercial platform (ChrisBeatCancer) attributing his survival to his alternatives rather than his surgery, acti

Christiane Northrup

criticalanti-vaccineOB-GYN

Christiane Northrup is a formerly prominent OB-GYN and bestselling author who built a large following through Oprah Winfrey appearances before pivoting to COVID-19 conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine misinformation. Named in the Center for Countering Digital Hate's 'Disinformation Dozen,' she playe

David Avocado Wolfe

highraw-foodsuperfoods

David 'Avocado' Wolfe is an American author and internet personality who promotes raw foodism, superfoods, and an array of conspiratorial and pseudoscientific ideas including flat-earth theory, chemtrail beliefs, and the claim that gravity is a toxin. He co-founded Sunfood Nutrition and Sacred Choco

David Geier

criticalpracticing without licenseautism quackery

David Geier holds only a bachelor's degree in biology but operated alongside his physician father Mark Geier, diagnosing autistic patients, ordering blood tests, and co-administering the Lupron protocol without any medical license. In 2011, the Maryland Board of Physicians charged him with practicin

David Perlmutter

highgrain-braingluten-free

David Perlmutter is a board-certified neurologist who claims that gluten and carbohydrates are the primary causes of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, autism, ADHD, depression, and nearly every other neurological condition. Epidemiologist David Katz (Yale) called this a 'silly book' that is 'way ahe

Deepak Chopra

mediumquantum-healingayurveda

Deepak Chopra is an Indian-American physician who abandoned conventional medicine to build a multi-million dollar empire around 'quantum healing,' a concept that misappropriates quantum physics terminology to lend scientific-sounding credibility to Ayurvedic and New Age health claims. Physicists and

Del Bigtree

criticalanti-vaccinemedia

Del Bigtree is a television producer with no medical training who became one of the most influential anti-vaccine activists in the United States through his film Vaxxed and his web show The HighWire. He leads the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), which uses litigation and media to challenge va

Dr. Mehmet Oz

highmedical-quackeryalternative-medicine

Cardiothoracic surgeon turned TV host who promoted unproven supplements and miracle cures to millions of viewers.

Eric Berg

highchiropractoradrenal-fatigue

Eric Berg is a chiropractor with over 14 million YouTube subscribers who presents himself as a medical authority on nutrition, hormones, keto, and disease. He regularly promotes 'adrenal fatigue,' a diagnosis rejected by the Endocrine Society, and makes health claims far outside the scope of chiropr

Eric Dubay

mediumflat earthconspiracy theory

Eric Dubay is an American living in Thailand who is widely credited with reviving the modern flat Earth movement through his 2015 book and video '200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball,' which has been translated into over 20 languages. Beyond flat Earth advocacy, Dubay openly promotes Holocaust de

Erin Elizabeth

highanti-vaccineCOVID-19 misinformation

Erin Elizabeth is the founder of Health Nut News and partner of vaccine misinformer Joseph Mercola. She was named in the 'Disinformation Dozen' report identifying the twelve individuals responsible for 65% of COVID-19 anti-vaccine misinformation on social media. She was banned from Facebook, Instagr

Gary Null

highAIDS denialismsupplement seller

Gary Null is a long-running American radio host and supplement entrepreneur who has promoted HIV/AIDS denialism, anti-vaccination claims, alternative cancer cures, and homeopathy for decades, marketing his own line of nutritional supplements. His PhD—obtained from a non-traditional institution that

Gwyneth Paltrow

mediumwellnessgoop

Gwyneth Paltrow is an actress and founder of Goop, a lifestyle and wellness brand that sells premium products while promoting unscientific health claims. Goop paid a $145,000 settlement in 2018 for making unsubstantiated health claims about its jade egg products. The brand has promoted vaginal steam

Ilchi Lee

highDahn-YogaBrain-Education

Ilchi Lee is a South Korean entrepreneur who founded the Dahn Yoga (now Body & Brain) chain of wellness centers, promoting a system he calls 'Brain Education' that he claims can reverse aging, enhance brain function, and treat a wide range of conditions. His organization has been the subject of fede

Jack Wolfson

highanti-vaccinecardiologist

Jack Wolfson is a board-eligible osteopathic cardiologist practicing in Paradise Valley, Arizona, who gained national notoriety during the 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak when he stated publicly that children have 'the right' to get measles, called the disease 'benign,' and argued that vaccines are

Jay Bhattacharya

mediumGreat Barrington DeclarationCOVID policy contrarianism

Jay Bhattacharya is a Stanford economist-physician who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which proposed allowing COVID-19 to spread naturally among healthy populations to achieve herd immunity. This proposal was condemned by the majority of public health and epidemiological experts as da

Jenny McCarthy

highanti-vaccineautism

Jenny McCarthy is an actress and television personality who became the most publicly prominent face of the anti-vaccine movement in the late 2000s after claiming her son Evan's autism was caused by the MMR vaccine and subsequently cured through chelation therapy and dietary interventions. She led Ge

Jim Bakker

hightelevangelistcolloidal-silver

Jim Bakker is an American televangelist who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 1989 and served nearly five years in federal prison. After rebuilding his ministry in Missouri, he used The Jim Bakker Show to sell colloidal silver 'Silver Solution' products in early 2020, with a guest claiming th

João Teixeira de Faria

criticalpsychic-surgeonfaith-healer

João Teixeira de Faria, known as 'John of God,' operated the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola in Abadiânia, Brazil, attracting tens of thousands of visitors monthly — including celebrities and terminally ill patients — who believed he could perform physical surgeries without medical training as a vessel

Joe Dispenza

highchiropractormeditation

Joe Dispenza is a chiropractor who presents himself as a neuroscientist and teaches that meditation and belief can cure cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's disease, and other serious conditions. He is not a neuroscientist, physician, or oncologist. His workshops cost thousands of dollars, and documen

Joe Rogan

highCOVID-19 misinformationivermectin promotion

Joe Rogan hosts the world's most listened-to podcast, reaching roughly 11 million listeners per episode, and used that platform throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to promote ivermectin as a COVID treatment, amplify fringe COVID contrarians, and spread vaccine misinformation to a massive global audienc

Joel Fuhrman

lownutritarianplant-based

Joel Fuhrman is an American board-certified family physician who promotes the 'Nutritarian' diet — a nutrient-dense, predominantly plant-based eating style — through books, a membership website, and a range of supplements. While the broad principle of nutrient-dense plant-based eating has scientific

Joel Wallach

highmineral-deficiencyMLM

Joel Wallach is a veterinarian and naturopath who has spent decades promoting the false claim that virtually all disease is caused by mineral deficiencies curable with his colloidal mineral supplements, sold through his multi-level marketing company Youngevity. His 1994 audio recording 'Dead Doctors

John Edward

mediumpsychic-mediumcold-reading

John Edward McGee Jr. is an American television personality who claims to communicate with deceased relatives on behalf of grieving audience members. Investigators from Dateline NBC and skeptic James Randi documented his use of hot and cold reading techniques — gathering prior information or making

Joseph Mercola

criticalanti-vaccineCOVID misinformation

Joseph Mercola is an osteopathic physician who built one of the internet's largest alternative health empires, generating over $100 million by selling supplements while spreading health misinformation. The FDA has warned him multiple times since 2005 for making illegal disease-treatment claims, and

Josh Axe

mediumdraxeancient-nutrition

Josh Axe is an American chiropractor, author, and internet entrepreneur who operates DrAxe.com, one of the world's highest-traffic alternative health websites, and co-founded Ancient Nutrition supplements company. He presents himself using the 'Dr.' title in ways that lead visitors to assume broader

Judy Mikovits

highanti-vaccineCOVID-19 misinformation

Judy Mikovits is a former research scientist whose career was derailed by a major scientific fraud involving the retracted XMRV-CFS link. She later gained mass notoriety through the viral 'Plandemic' conspiracy film, spreading false claims about vaccines, masks, and COVID-19 to hundreds of millions

Kelly Brogan

criticalanti-vaccinepsychiatrist

Kelly Brogan is a Harvard-trained (MIT/Weill Cornell) psychiatrist who leverages her impressive credentials to promote dangerous pseudoscience including the claim that COVID-19 does not exist, that HIV does not cause AIDS, that antidepressants are harmful and should be discontinued, and that infecti

Ken Ham

highyoung earth creationismbiblical literalism

Ken Ham is the founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, the organization behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky, which together attract millions of visitors annually. Ham advocates that the Earth and universe were created approximately 6,000 years ago — a claim contrad

Kent Hovind

mediumyoung earth creationismtax fraud

Kent Hovind, who styles himself 'Dr. Dino,' is a young Earth creationist evangelist who built a following claiming dinosaurs and humans coexisted and that the Earth is fewer than 10,000 years old. His 'doctorate' is from Patriot Bible University, an unaccredited correspondence school classified by t

Kerri Rivera

criticalMMSchlorine dioxide

Kerri Rivera is a former Chicago real estate agent and homeopathy certificate holder who developed a protocol administering chlorine dioxide (industrial bleach) to autistic children orally and as enemas, claiming it could 'cure' autism by purging 'parasites.' She claims over 600 children have been '

Kevin Trudeau

highinfomercial fraudFTC violations

Kevin Trudeau is a convicted fraudster and infomercial personality with no medical credentials who sold millions of books falsely claiming to reveal suppressed natural cures for cancer, obesity, and other conditions. The FTC fined him $37.6 million for consumer fraud, and he was sentenced to 10 year

Lawrence Palevsky

highanti-vaccinepediatrician

Lawrence Palevsky is a New York City-area pediatrician with legitimate medical training who has used his credentials to spread anti-vaccine misinformation for over two decades, serving on the advisory board of the NVIC and appearing in anti-vaccine propaganda films. He has been particularly active t

Leigh Erin Connealy

mediumintegrative-oncologyalternative-cancer-treatment

Leigh Erin Connealy is an MD who operates the Cancer Center for Healing in Irvine, California, offering expensive unproven 'integrative oncology' treatments including intravenous vitamin C and hyperbaric oxygen. She was publicly reprimanded by the Medical Board of California in 2017 for failing to d

Leonard Coldwell

highfake-credentialscancer-cure-fraud

Leonard Coldwell, born Bernd Klein in Germany, claims to have cured over 35,000 cancer patients with a 92.3% cure rate but provides zero verifiable evidence for these claims. He has fabricated multiple doctoral and medical credentials, promotes cancer cures through supplements and conspiracy theorie

Mark Hyman

mediumfunctional-medicinedetox

Mark Hyman is the most prominent public face of 'functional medicine,' a framework the American Academy of Family Physicians found lacking in evidence and potentially harmful. He promotes heavy metal toxicity as a cause of obesity, ADHD, autism, and Alzheimer's, and sells detox programs and suppleme

Mark R. Geier

criticalautism quackeryLupron protocol

Mark Geier is a physician and geneticist who, with his unlicensed son David, subjected hundreds of autistic children to Lupron—a powerful hormone-suppressing drug used in prostate cancer treatment and for chemical castration of sex offenders—based on a fabricated theory that testosterone binds mercu

Mark Sargent

lowflat earthconspiracy theory

Mark Sargent is an American software analyst and former competitive video game player with no scientific background who became a leading organizer of the modern flat Earth movement after releasing his 'Flat Earth Clues' YouTube series in 2015. The series attracted millions of views and was instrumen

Matthias Rath

criticalAIDS denialismvitamin cure

Matthias Rath is a German-born physician turned vitamin entrepreneur who moved to South Africa around 2004 and conducted unauthorized clinical trials in HIV-positive townships, recruiting patients with offers of food, instructing them to stop antiretroviral treatment, and replacing it with his vitam

Mehmet Oz

highalternative medicinesupplement promotion

Mehmet Oz is a Harvard- and Penn-educated cardiothoracic surgeon who leveraged his legitimate credentials to become a television personality promoting pseudoscientific health products and unproven remedies to a mass audience. A 2014 Senate committee hearing rebuked him for using his show to promote

Mike Adams

criticalanti-vaccineconspiracy theories

Mike Adams runs Natural News, one of the largest and most prolific health misinformation platforms on the internet. With no verified scientific credentials, he promotes vaccine denialism, cancer cure fraud, GMO scaremongering, and a wide range of political and health conspiracy theories while sellin

Myron Wentz is a microbiologist and founder of USANA Health Sciences who uses his legitimate scientific credentials to lend credibility to an MLM nutritional supplement company accused of operating a pyramid scheme and making false health claims. A 500-page fraud report filed with the SEC, FBI, and

Naomi Wolf

highCOVID-19 misinformationanti-vaccine

Naomi Wolf is a former feminist icon and bestselling author who descended into COVID vaccine conspiracy theories, claiming vaccines are a 'software platform,' cause mass infertility, and constitute 'mass murder.' She was permanently suspended from Twitter for vaccine misinformation and was found to

Patrick Moore

highclimate denialfossil fuel funding

Patrick Moore is a Canadian ecologist and former Greenpeace member who now earns income as a paid consultant for fossil fuel, nuclear, and timber industries while claiming there is no scientific proof of human-caused climate change. He misleadingly promotes himself as a 'co-founder' of Greenpeace —

Paul Thomas

criticalanti-vaccinepediatrician

Paul Thomas is an Oregon pediatrician who built a 15,000-patient practice around an anti-vaccine ideology, co-authored a book promoting a delayed vaccine schedule, and published a fraudulent 'vaxxed vs. unvaxxed' study that was subsequently retracted. The Oregon Medical Board suspended his license o

Pete Evans

highpaleoanti-vaccine

Pete Evans is an Australian celebrity chef and former My Kitchen Rules judge who became one of Australia's most prominent promoters of health misinformation, anti-vaccination sentiment, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories. He was fined approximately A$80,000 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for

Peter Breggin

highanti-psychiatrypsychiatric drugs

Peter Breggin is a Harvard-educated American psychiatrist who built a career as the leading intellectual voice of the anti-psychiatry movement, arguing that all psychiatric medications are neurotoxins causing brain damage and that psychosocial therapy alone should replace drug-based psychiatry. Whil

Peter McCullough

highCOVID misinformationanti-vaccine

Peter McCullough is a formerly credentialed cardiologist who leveraged an extensive legitimate publication record to become one of the most prominent medical voices promoting COVID-19 misinformation, including false claims that vaccines cause widespread sudden cardiac deaths. He was separated from B

Peter Popoff

highfaith-healertelevangelist

Peter Popoff is a German-born American televangelist who built a faith-healing ministry by secretly using a radio earpiece to receive biographical information about audience members from his wife, then presenting it as divine revelation. James Randi exposed the scheme on The Tonight Show in 1986, le

Pierre Kory

highivermectin misinformationCOVID-19 misinformation

Pierre Kory is a physician whose board certifications were revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. He was the public face of the campaign to promote ivermectin as a miracle cure for COVID-19, a claim refuted by multiple large randomized controlled tr

Rick Simpson is a Canadian engineer who claims to have cured his own skin cancer in 2003 using a high-THC cannabis oil extract he developed, now known as Rick Simpson Oil (RSO). He has since claimed the oil can cure virtually any cancer and actively advises patients to discontinue conventional treat

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

criticalanti-vaccinechildren's health defense

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and member of the Kennedy political dynasty who has spent two decades promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, falsely claiming that childhood vaccines cause autism. He founded Children's Health Defense, the nation's most prominent anti-vaccine org

Robert Malone

highCOVID misinformationanti-vaccine

Robert Malone is a physician and early-stage mRNA researcher who, despite having a minimal role in mRNA vaccine development, brands himself as the 'inventor of mRNA vaccines' to lend authority to his COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. He promotes unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccine harms, 'mas

Robert O. Young

criticalpseudosciencecancer quackery

Robert O. Young is a self-styled 'microbiologist' and bestselling author who falsely claimed that all disease is caused by acidity and can be cured by an alkaline diet, despite holding no legitimate medical credentials. He was convicted of practicing medicine without a license, a jury awarded a canc

Russell Blaylock

highretired neurosurgeonMSG fear-mongering

Russell Blaylock is a retired neurosurgeon who has leveraged his medical credentials to build a lucrative career selling fear about MSG, aspartame, vaccines, and fluoride, and promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19, culminating in a monthly Newsmax health newsletter and his own branded supplem

Sayer Ji

highanti-vaccineCOVID-19 misinformation

Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo, a website that presents itself as a scientific research database but systematically cherry-picks and misrepresents medical literature to support anti-vaccine and alternative medicine claims. Named in the 'Disinformation Dozen' report, Ji promotes pseudoscient

Sherri Tenpenny

criticalanti-vaccineosteopath

Sherri Tenpenny is an Ohio osteopathic physician and one of the most prolific spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation in the United States, named in the Center for Countering Digital Hate's 'Disinformation Dozen' report. She testified before the Ohio legislature in 2021 that COVID-19 vaccines cause

Stanislaw Burzynski

criticalcancer quackeryantineoplastons

Stanislaw Burzynski is a Polish-American physician who has spent over four decades selling an unproven cancer treatment called 'antineoplastons' to desperate terminal patients at exorbitant cost, despite having no credible evidence of efficacy and a history of patient deaths during trials. The Texas

Stephanie Seneff

highglyphosateautism

Stephanie Seneff is a senior research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and AI Laboratory whose actual research is in speech recognition and human-computer interaction, but who has since 2011 published prolifically in low-impact and predatory open-access journals claiming that the herbicide glypho

Steven Gundry

mediumlectinsplant-paradox

Steven Gundry is a former cardiothoracic surgeon who pivoted to selling a lectin-free diet and a line of expensive supplements, claiming lectins in plants cause nearly all modern disease. His peer-reviewed research output effectively ended in 2004, and reviewers have given his books scientific-accur

Tucker Carlson

highCOVID-19 misinformationvaccine misinformation

Tucker Carlson used his prime-time Fox News platform — watched by more than 4 million nightly — to systematically undermine COVID-19 vaccine confidence through misleading use of VAERS data, false claims about vaccine efficacy, and promotion of anti-vaccine guests. His broadcast reach made him one of

Vandana Shiva

highanti-GMOpseudoscience

Vandana Shiva is an Indian philosopher and activist who has parlayed a PhD in philosophy of physics into global authority on agriculture and biotechnology, fields in which she has no formal scientific training. She has repeatedly claimed that Monsanto's Bt cotton caused a 'genocide' of Indian farmer

William Davis

mediumwheat-bellygluten-free

William Davis is a cardiologist who became famous for claiming that modern wheat is a 'perfect, chronic poison' responsible for an implausible range of diseases from obesity to schizophrenia. A 2013 Journal of Cereal Science review found his central claims could not be substantiated from published s

Zach Bush

highglyphosateGMO

Zach Bush is a credentialed physician who claims that glyphosate (the herbicide in Roundup) is responsible for the global epidemic of virtually every chronic disease, including autism, cancer, Alzheimer's, and leaky gut. He rejects germ theory in favor of 'terrain theory' and sells ION Gut Support s