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1. A website called the National Observer is an "online only" publication whose editor has been accused of political boosterism and using her publication to attack opponents of her family.

A short while ago, despite two hurricanes and a shooting in Las Vegas, advocacy journalists in North Carolina were spending time attempting to Gerrymander the word "conservationist" in order to make sure an expert in favor of natural gas could be excluded from a committee. Mostly because he lacked their key criterion, a donation to Sierra Club.

Dr. Michael Dourson, who sits on ACSH's Board of Scientific Advisors, discusses changes at the EPA. He notes the public interest is best served when science is replicable, and when it's not access to underlying data is vital to independent analysis. Without quality risk assessment, we can't create effective national regulations.

Communication skills do not always come as naturally to scientists as being curious innovators and brilliant problem solvers. One of the main reasons for this is our reliance on jargon - specific words that are difficult for non-experts to understand. A new tool, the "de-jargonizer" - identifies jargon and translates it into language that can be understood by everyone - having the potential to blur the line where science and society meet. 

Michelle Obama was caught eating a cheeseburger, the Baltimore Sun notes. For most of us, this is not headline fodder only an indication that the First Lady is a normal human being. But according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an activist group that poses as a health group, Mrs. Obama s occasional burger indulgence is a dangerous practice that must be stopped.

Anti-pesticide activist Carey Gillam recently moderated a panel discussion about the weed killer glyphosate. I attended and took notes. Here's what I saw.

ACSH President Hank Campbell sat on a Q&A panel for an anti-agriculture film called "Poisoning Paradise," knowing they were going to yell about corporate conspiracies. And he thinks everyone who cares about science should. Not for the activists who want farmers extinct, but for the people who walk out when they see how environmentalists behave. Because those people can be reached.

A paper says up to 8,000 new antibiotic combinations could be ready for testing, but there is a big catch: It's called reality.

1. If you don't have HBO, and if you have HBO but you don't watch John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight", and if you do ordinarily watch but missed the August 13th episode...well, you didn't miss much.

Dr. Whelan presented this speech on November 10, 1992 upon her acceptance of the Calver Award presenter by the Environmental Division of the American Public Health Association.
This lecture pays tribute to Homer Calver and his crusade against premature death and disease during the first decades of this century. Calver's greatness came because of the time in which he lived.

Part 1 of this two-part series described the “Stanford University paradox” – the uncritical embrace of politically correct concepts that contradict its reputation as a cutting-edge, science-grounded institution. I described the contrast between the university’s outstanding research and its dubious view of “sustainability,” which includes a commitment to organic farming practices. I elaborate on the latter here, in Part 2.

The Pew Research Center released a survey of 12,648 Americans on their current views on COVID-19. The headline was the increasing interest in vaccinations, up now to 60% of those surveyed, since Pfizer and Moderna's announcements. But the headline left a lot of great information "below the fold," if mentioned at all. This special edition of Every Picture Tells A Story shares a few of the salient findings.

Social media censorship has exploded since the beginning of the pandemic, in large part thanks to the proliferation of so-called "fact-checkers." While efforts to limit the spread of false information online seem sensible, experts are starting to point out the downsides of tech companies moderating scientific disputes.

In our modern industrialized food society, it's easy to lose awareness of how food is made. In the 19th century, when food was just becoming industrialized, it was fascinating to city dwellers. Factories gave tours, but it was certainly not without shock to the public who witnessed the process.

Are bees facing extinction as many environmental advocacy groups and some scientists claim. And are neonicotinoid pesticides the key reason behind their health problems, as many activists, and some news reports suggest?

A malevolent troll named Paul Thacker has made a living smearing and harassing scientists on Twitter. With the blessing of editors Nikhil Swaminathan and Jennifer Block, the website Grist has now given him a platform to spread his lies.

Drug Interaction

Adulterated honey, meaning it has been diluted with other substances, has been an issue for as far back as honey has been sold.(1) One of the reasons we know so much about the composition of the sweetener is due to efforts from the 1960s on to fight fraud. Today, it is most likely to be mixed with high fructose corn syrup because, as you probably know, that is about the same in fructose.

For political websites, no conspiracy theory is too outrageous - including claims that I might be a shill for a corporation.

"Flip Little Article"?
Dear Dr. [sic] Raso,

People who see corporate shills everywhere they look are no different from run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists. And some of them are MDs.

Ah, it's spring again when our fancies are said to turn to romance. And with Earth Day upon us (April 22nd), the Greens' romantic fantasies turn to the environment, as they promote nineteenth-century Romantic ideologies to deal with twenty-first-century problems. Increasingly, the food sections of many newspapers have become year-round bastions of these romantic ideologies, touting the virtues of local produce, heritage varieties, and of course organic agriculture.

Recently, Newsday's David Olson wrote about opioids in an honest way not often seen in mainstream media. He emphasized the harm caused by the “overcorrection of the pendulum” – the shortage of medically legitimate opioids caused by ill-advised restrictions on prescribing. He gives personal accounts of practitioners, pharmacists, and patients struggling to navigate the unforgiving terrain of new laws and policies. Thumbs up to Mr. Olson for this important article.

1. Nature magazine covered our ranking of the good and bad science journalism sites last week, highlighting our concern that "Not only is it susceptible to the same sorts of biases that afflict regular journalism, but it is uniquely vulnerable to outrageous sensationalism”.

New York, NY -- June 2005. Journalists can improve their coverage of public health topics by more critically considering health claims made by activist groups. These claims are frequently not based on sound science.