I have, on more than one occasion, been critical of Dr Joseph Mercola. His theories about DMSO and sunlight sometimes feel less like medicine and more like the early stages of a cult. But his recent article—“How Political Meddling Threatens Your Health and Medical Freedom”—is a different sort of piece. His tone is unusually measured. The examples he gives are grounded in real events. His broader argument, though sweeping, holds together.

Medical freedom is in retreat. In its place, we have something else: a state-sponsored regime of loyalty to approved authorities, and a narrowing of acceptable questions. Dr Mercola is both right and eloquent in his description of where we are.

He opens with the story of Dr Mary Talley Bowden, an ENT specialist in Texas. During the pandemic, she prescribed ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies and treated over 5,000 patients with zero deaths. She says: “Monoclonal antibodies came about, and those worked great… They worked wonderfully. People turned around very quickly.” And yet she was suspended by Houston Methodist Hospital and publicly discredited.

What matters here is not whether one believes ivermectin works. It is the principle at stake: What counts as legitimate medical judgement? And who has the right to define it?

Throughout the pandemic, medical systems in the West enforced not consensus, but conformity. Doctors who deviated from centralised protocols—however carefully—were penalised. Treatments that hadn’t been endorsed by the official bodies were treated as dangerous, regardless of clinical outcomes. Information that contradicted official guidance was labelled misinformation. This isn’t how science works. It’s how political control operates.

Mercola argues that this behaviour wasn’t an accident. It was the result of a system that prioritised obedience over evidence. He writes: “The U.S. government and media appear to have become extensions of the drug industry.” That may sound extreme, but the past five years offer overpowering support for the claim. Corporate influence over public health messaging has been visible. So has the willingness of public and private bodies to silence competing views.

Consider Mercola’s comments on vaccine injury reporting. He cites the VAERS system, noting that as of February 2024, it recorded “more than 38,000 deaths following COVID-19 vaccination.” That number is contested. VAERS is a passive surveillance system and includes reports that may be coincidental. But the point isn’t that all 38,000 deaths were caused by vaccines. The point is that serious signals were ignored or dismissed without real investigation. Mercola asks: “When did we decide that some lives are expendable so long as others are saved?”

Even if one disagrees with his interpretation, the question is worth asking.

This problem extends beyond pharmaceuticals. Censorship was deployed against critics of lockdowns. School closures were treated as non-negotiable, even when the evidence against them mounted. Natural immunity was denied or belittled. Meanwhile, corporate interests thrived. As Mercola puts it: “What we had was not a pandemic of the unvaccinated, but a pandemic of compliance.”

There’s some rhetorical overreach here, no doubt. Mercola’s style can be provocative. But beneath it is a legitimate concern about the erosion of informed consent. That erosion didn’t happen suddenly. It crept in through language—words like “misinformation,” “harm,” and “public health threat”—used not to clarify, but to control.

In Britain, this climate has been replicated. Those who questioned lockdown policy were shouted down. Doctors who raised concerns about excess mortality were told to keep quiet. Speech controls are now in place under the Online Safety Act to allow the state to suppress views that cause “psychological harm,” even if those views are factually correct.

Mercola may sound like a radical, but he is describing something real.

As someone of Chinese background, I find the comparison between Britain and China increasingly difficult to avoid. In China, censorship exists to protect the Communist Party. It is blunt and unashamed. In Britain, the mechanisms are more subtle, but they aim at the same result: deference to power, plus social punishment for speaking out.

The most dangerous thing about modern Western censorship is that it pretends to be liberal. It calls itself safety. It uses health as its justification.

Mercola writes: “We now live in a world where truth is decided by consensus, not evidence, and where asking questions can destroy your career.” That is overstated in tone, but not in substance. We have seen it happen. Doctors have lost their careers. Scientists have lost their grants. Citizens have lost their social media accounts.

If the public tolerates this model—censorship disguised as care—it will not be a temporary phase. The next emergency, whether viral or digital, will bring more of the same.

I still disagree with Dr Mercola on many of his medical claims. But on this issue, he is not only right—he is brave to say so. A society in which doctors cannot dissent is not a safe society. It is a frightened one. And a frightened society cannot be free.

Even flawed voices can sound the alarm. Even figures on the margin can point to the cliff.