Font ResizeAustin, Texas » A week after Whole Foods Market Inc. CEO John Mackey weighed in on the national debate over health care reform, a customer backlash is continuing to ferment.
Thousands have vowed -- online, at least -- to boycott the company after Mackey wrote an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal criticizing President Barack Obama's health-care proposal and calling for less regulation of the insurance industry.
Mackey has never been shy about expressing his opinions. He is an unapologetic opponent of unions. He used his blog on the Whole Foods site two years ago to criticize the Federal Trade Commission.
In this case, Mackey has waded into one of the country's biggest controversies, a topic with fervent people on both sides. Late Tuesday, there were almost 11,000 posts on the subject on the company's online forum, not to mention plenty of comments on other blog sites.
"Shame on you, Mr. Mackey," one poster, who said she is a nurse, wrote on Whole Foods' forum. "You have run out of MY money, that's for sure."
As for the media, both mainstream and new, the issue was picked up by The New York Times , CNN, ABC News and the DailyKos Web site, to name a few.
A Facebook group calling for a boycott had more than 13,000 members as of Tuesday. A poster on the Gawker site called Mackey "an Internet blowhard."
But others online were supportive of Mackey's health
"I would rather heed the sage advice of a proven leader who has decades of experience in the employment of thousands of individuals over nebulous and untested ideas of reform," wrote another poster on Whole Foods' Web site.
