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Marketing executives at General Mills insisted that if their personal Twitter feeds were evidence, people were in a panic about GMOs. Then they discovered the awful truth.

Science is one of the few institutions in America that has largely remained above the hyperpartisanship gripping our nation. However, there is a small but growing perception among Americans that scientists are becoming politically biased. Indeed, surveys have confirmed that Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in academia.

This piece appeared in the Orange County Register.
Rachel Carson, who would have turned 100 today, wrote Silent Spring, the book published in 1962 that started the modern wave of anti-chemical environmental paranoia. Now, even peer-reviewed scientific journals are absent-mindedly repeating her brand of scare-claims.

Since the start of 2021, the media has regularly urged Americans to get their COVID shots as soon as possible. But this effort won't be very effective unless reporters begin changing how they frame their coverage. 

Anti-science activists continue to scramble to shore up their clients, who have become increasingly unnerved that we're pushing them back to the fringes where they belong. And then legitimate media linked to us as well.

Not only is science journalism susceptible to the same sorts of biases that afflict regular journalism, but it's uniquely vulnerable to outrageous sensationalism – this or that will either cure cancer or kill us all. So to promote good outlets while castigating the bad, we partnered with RealClearScience to create a handy chart. 

To the Editor
The New England Journal of Medicine's apology for violating its own strict conflict-of-interest rules for reviews and editorials (news article, Feb. 24) prompts me to challenge the conventional wisdom of "the stricter the better."
Strict conflict-of-interest policies are themselves biased, since they suggest that researchers who work for drug companies are susceptible to introducing bias into a study, while government- and foundation-financed scientists never have an ax to grind.

Bad behavior has consequences, except when you're a social media platform. But the number of peer-reviewed articles subsequently retracted raises the question of whether medical journals believe that they, too, are "platforms" without responsibility for what they publish and disseminate.

The media frequently report claims by nonprofit consumer groups about alleged health hazards in our food supply and our environment. Often these claims are coupled with suggestions for specific actions to reduce the purported risk of disease or premature death by avoiding or reducing exposure to the allegedly harmful substance.

Predatory journals – which are non-indexed, non-archived and lack transparency – have been called a “corruption of the communication of science." Because our organization's mission is to improve the communication of science, we want to stop them in their tracks. But what can be done? 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A dose of science weirdness involving falling mice, a dishonest eatery that foolishly mocks chemistry ... and a truly stimulating coffee – if you get our drift.

Some scientific journals are publishing articles by anti-technology activists without disclosing their blatant financial conflicts of interest. Despite all the pleas for transparency, the problem is getting worse.

It's known that predatory open access (pOA) journals have low standards. But the story of the paper submission of Dr. Alexandre Martin's son, Tristan, underscores just how unethical they are. If published, Tristan would have plagiarized his work without ever having been aware of it. Did we mention that Tristan is seven years old? 

The Guardian's health page is scaremongering about e-cigarettes and pushing bizarre solutions to obesity. This is what happens when political activists write about public health.

It didn't take long to guess what might be going on: We're educating a whole lot of people about the differences between health scares and health threats -- and doing it well.

Dutch journalist Jannes van Roermund sent an embarrassing, unprofessional, and accusatory email to epidemiologist and ACSH advisor Geoffrey Kabat. Dr. Kabat's response is pure gold.

Reporters like to portray themselves as truth tellers who hold the powerful accountable. In reality, many of them are hired guns who publish propaganda under the guise of doing journalism. The good news is that a growing number of Americans are abandoning the legacy media for better sources of information.

Junk science is everywhere. This is why our mission is so important. If journalists and advocates don't speak up for good science, cranks and quacks will take over. As part of our ongoing effort to eradicate nonsense, here's our list of the top junk science stories we debunked this year.

Michael Pollan, food activist and journalist, is the proverbial man trapped in the past. His latest piece for The New York Times criticizes the Obama administration for not catering to his bizarre beliefs about how food production actually works. And along he tries to smear ... the American Council's president, and you.

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.

Some might argue that democracy not only leads people to believe that all humans are of equal value (which is true), but all humans are equal in their abilities, thoughts, and behaviors (which is completely false). Yet, many people in a democracy believe the latter. And it leads to a very bad outcome.

The real issue is that our culture has gotten intellectually lazy. All someone has to do is ask about funding and a giant swath of people will dismiss the work. It is not just the anti-GMO and anti-vaccine contingent, everyone does it...

Here's some of what we've been up to over the last seven days, trying to change hearts and minds.

Do you think too much pizza will make you fat, or the chemicals in the box? If you think it's the box, you probably read AlterNet instead of us. And we had more outreach last week

A recent prospective study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested that exposure to perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) chemicals commonly found in non-stick pans and food packaging reduces immune responses to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations among children aged 5 to 7 years old. But before you start worrying about protecting your children from these supposedly dangerous chemicals, it s important to note that the research, led by Dr.