1. In Puget Sound Business Journal, Dr. Alex Berezow takes Seattle to task for engaging in Californication - desiring to play nanny state to the rest of the country while ignoring its problems at home. Like it's runaway homeless drug user population that is driving people and businesses away. You can read it here.
2. Our interns went into surgery. Well, they didn't perform it. But there is a strong chance one of them will in the future.
We try to give our interns a cross-section of experiences, which along with research projects (and even writing articles, if you saw our July 4th "Internpalooza" event) includes Capitol Hill briefings, having journalists visit to talk to them about science and health communication, and a lot more.
For this, the mother of Stephanie Bloom (middle) arranged the visit to see two procedures so they could write about them with some more personal context.
3. Environmental blogger Tong Scott of the Minnesota Public Radio site Marketplace.org claims EPA secretly knows Trichloroethylene (TCE) is killing people but don't ban it because the mean old business world somehow prevents it.
You have seen this all before: Science is a Vast Corporate Conspiracy. And only "sustainability" bloggers at media outlets reliant on government funding can see through it.
His primary source is some people inside EPA that prefer statistics over biology, chemistry, and toxicology. His supporting information is that John Travolta made a movie about it, which to sustainability bloggers is close enough to Erin Brockovich (also wrong) that they know it feels conclusive for their readers. In reality, EPA knows no such thing, but they want to know. Which is why the Obama administration EPA scheduled it for review. Mr. Scott simultaneously claims the Obama EPA wanted to ban it yet scheduled it for review instead - which makes no sense already - but because the Trump EPA is reviewing it just like the Obama administration decided to do, on the same schedule, the Trump EPA is bad.
For our part, he claims that because a retired career CDC Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry toxicologist is on our Board of Scientific Advisors and he wrote in an article that EPA errs on the side of caution (how controversial!) in setting safe limits that we must be controlled by "conservative foundations and energy, chemical and pharmaceutical corporations."
This nonsense conspiracy claim shows the guy is not a journalist, he is either auditioning for Mother Jones or he writes Wiki posts for the former Clinton attorney who now runs the anti-science site Sourcewatch.
He is able to know that companies funded us in the past because we have been transparent about it - unlike the political allies he is shilling for.
If you want the real story on TCE, read ACSH Explains: What's The Story On Trichloroethylene (TCE)? and then tell Minnesota Public Radio they should be doing more legitimate investigation and less undermining of the science community.
4. Dr. Josh Bloom was featured on the podcast "America's real opioid crisis - The war on pain patients"
You can listen here:
5. Dr. Alex Berezow's latest radio segment can be heard here (starting at 18:55)
6. In Investor's Business Daily, Henry Miller, MD, cites our work on how Russia does far worse than meddle in our elections by exposing how politicians meddle in our elections - it meddles in our Science. And that is serious stuff.
