This piece first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.
-- along with some very combative reader responses:
For years, friends and colleagues have asked me: why don't scientists
speak up when the media hypes the latest health scare? They ask why
scientists sit mute when self-appointed environmental activists claim
there is a cancer epidemic (there is not) or that "chemicals" in
products ranging from lipstick to rubber duckies to plastic bottles
cause cancer and reproductive abnormalities (they don't). I think I
know the answer: it is simpler and safer to remain quiet and let the
falsehoods prevail than it is to stand up and confront the hyperbole.
Let me give you a recent personal example.
In August, a CNN reporter named Jordana Miller contacted me to say she
was working on a segment on "bio-monitoring," a trend
where people are seeking to have their blood analyzed to learn if there
may be "chemicals" present that would jeopardize their health. I
agreed -- and was the subject of an aggressive one-hour interview on
camera in my office, the footage for possible use in the upcoming CNN
segment.
When the segment never appeared on CNN, we inquired as to its status
and Ms. Miller told us that the program was moving ahead but that there
was no room for my point of view. The planned segment was built on the
premise that any detection of a "chemical" in blood was a sign of
looming illness -- maybe death -- and it appears that my point of view
was so at variance with that claim that it was to be omitted as not to
neutralize the story.
Yesterday, however, CNN released a short video and commentary on their
website. The headline of Ms. Miller's story said it all: "Tests Reveal
High Chemical Levels in Kids' Bodies."
The text went on to describe parents of young children who were
horrified that "chemicals" were being detected in their kids' blood.
And it quoted an"expert":
"We are the humans in a dangerous and unnatural
experiment in the United States, and I think it's unconscionable," said
Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children's
Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New
York City.Trasande says that industrial toxins could be leading to more childhood
disease and disorders."We are in an epidemic of environmentally mediated disease among
American children today," he said. "Rates of asthma, childhood cancers,
birth defects and developmental disorders have exponentially increased,
and it can't be explained by changes in the human genome. So what has
changed? All the chemicals we're being exposed to."
In a gesture toward "balance" Ms. Miller then quoted me:
Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American
Council on Science and Health [ACSH], a public health advocacy group,
disagrees."My concern about this trend about measuring chemicals in the blood is
it's leading people to believe that the mere ability to detect
chemicals is the same as proving a hazard, that if you have this
chemical, you are at risk of a disease, and that is false," she said.
Whelan contends that trace levels of industrial chemicals in our bodies
do not necessarily pose health risks.
Literally within moments of the posting (it was for a good part of the
morning the lead story on CNN), I began getting e-mails and phonecalls
stating I should be "ashamed" of myself, asking "how you get to sleep
at night," claiming that I was responsible for suffering and death
among children -- frequently accompanied by the assertion that I did
not represent science but was a tool for the "chemical industry."
(ACSH's very modest budget is derived from a full spectrum of sources,
private foundations, corporations and, most recently, from thousands of
individual Americans who are sick of "junk science" dominating the
media and send ACSH checks to assist us in neutralizing the "scares du
jour" with a hefty helping of scientific facts.)
One correspondent included bcc'ed ire-filled e-mails to ACSH Trustees
suggesting that I be fired for making such allegedly outrageous
assertion. These furious CNN readers/viewers were nearly hysterical
over the fact that ACSH was defined as "a public health advocacy group"
-- which of course is exactly what ACSH is.
Did what I said merit such an attack on me? No, of course not. None
of those admonishing me had presented any explanation as to why their
scientific positions were right and mine were wrong. They simply
invoked the standard ad hominem attacks on me -- their smug belief
being that anyone who disagreed with them was by definition a paid
liar.
The above example is just one of many I could relate which confirm that
there are real disincentives for scientists to stand up and set the
record straight when science is distorted (as it was on the CNN website
yesterday). The film clip that CNN posted with the abovementioned
article featured CNN's Anderson Cooper having one pint of his blood
drawn to test for "chemicals." The doctor drawing his blood asserted
that there is an "epidemic" of childhood disease -- including cancer --
all related to "chemicals." That assertion is totally false.
The good doctor had no idea what he was talking about. But he was
featured in prime time to convey his misinformation. He would probably
be shocked that an analysis of human blood for chemicals of natural
origin would inevitably find traces of many perfectly natural
chemicals, including arsenic, hydrogen cyanide, solanine, and more.
Our ability to detect traces of anything in anything has left us with
more data than we know what to do with. Again, the mere fact that you
can detect a chemical does not mean it poses a hazard of any type.
What scientist wants to subject him or herself to personal attack for
simply stating common sense and basic scientific facts? Easier to
retreat to the laboratory and classroom -- and leave center stage to
the "toxic terrorists" who want us to believe there is a carcinogen on
every plate, a toxin in every drop of water we drink, poison in every
bit of air we breathe. The threat of personal vilification has largely
silenced the scientific community -- and chilled the dialogue so that
only the bad news gets coverage.
