Speaking of chemophobia...last week, we were exposed to breathless, semi-hysterical headlines alleging that pregnant women — and, of course, their unborn babies — are doomed to disease and premature death because of the chemical stew we are all living in. An excellent dash of science-based reassurance was administered over the weekend by New York Times columnist Andrew Revkin in his Dot Earth blog.
He writes:
As with climate science, it’s fine for scientists not only to describe their work but also offer their views on how society should respond, as long as those questions are not mashed up. It’s a fine line and I’m not saying it was crossed in this case.
Personally, I think a better approach is to have scientists in the relevant fields put a new paper in context and assess its significance.
ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross gives Mr. Revkin three cheers for painting a broad picture of journalism’s habit of offering up confusing, alarmist writing in response to dubious scientific claims put forward in “studies” often authored by academics with ties to radical environmentalists or by radical environmentalists themselves. Dr. Ross comments, “When the authors who generate such studies and a bunch of people involved in the environmental movement speak with one voice in attacking these chemicals, and the only voice cited in defence of chemical safety comes from industry spokesmen, it’s easy to dismiss the latter. While Revkin stops short of calling a spade a spade and laying blame on the journalists who have created unnecessary hype over the risks posed by the presence of minute amounts of certain chemicals in the bodies of pregnant women, he explains how little scientific foundation there is to this study and the many others like it - or to the attendant reporting on them. We here at ACSH would welcome a call from Mr. Revkin when he seeks a science-based perspective.”
