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This law firm shows no concern for the truth. It fits comfortably and profitably into our postmodern world, in which truth and lies are no longer distinguishable. Unscrupulous people can make a lot of money by exploiting the public's confusion over vaccines, chemicals and pharmaceutical products.

1. There's no question some parts of American culture, including academic and private sector science, have been hijacked by 'virtue signaling' - subject to condemnation or praise by groups to show how virtuous and superior they are to those they self-identify with.

Pheromones have long been credited (or blamed) for our behavioral choices, most notably our choice of sexual partners. The idea that we could base such a seemingly personal choice on a unconscious chemical signal is fascinating but, is there any scientific evidence to support it? 

In Part 1, we looked at some very strange science coming from the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Here, we examine some possible reasons for an apparent intentional omission of crucial data, which led to the misclassification of glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen." Looks like IARC knew this, but misclassified it anyway.

Seasonal Affective Disorder has had its validity questioned as a distinct mental disorder. Research published in journal Clinical Psychological Science provides persuasive data that casts major doubt on SAD being a legitimate psychiatric disorder.

Have you heard the one about the bees collapsing? Bees and other pollinators are of crucial importance to agriculture. Over the past few years, the media has been replete with scary stories about bee colony collapse. Science 2.0 s Hank Campbell lends perspective.

As you well know, at ACSH, our job is to talk about and reveal junk science. This is usually not especially difficult, since the same set of

CVS just sent out a mass email patting itself on the back because the pharmacy chain no longer sells cigarettes. That's fine and good. But here's some of the other junk they sell.

Despite the tragedy and dismay that struck with Japan s 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown, a World Health Organization report concluded that people living near Fukushima Japan s 2011 nuclear disaster site face only a slightly greater risk of cancer.

How do you combat obesity in low-income neighborhoods? Increase access to grocery stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables, many public health experts have long advised. It turns out, however, that this policy may actually have less credibility than previously believed.

The American Council on Science and Health has been fighting chemophobia since its inception in 1978. Unfortunately the advent of the Internet, while providing much valid information, has also become a venue of inaccurate and fear-mongering sites. Thus, we were more than pleased to discover a blog on the website of Scientific American by chemistry [...]
The post Blog hits the right note on chemophobia appeared first on Health & Science Dispatch.

Bees die. A lot. They die in the winter, they die in the summer. Sometimes they die in one area, which is what happened in 2006. Why? Well, it could be stress. Or that beekeeping has become a fad, where amateurs are bungling their backyard hive. So there's mounting evidence that the so-called "Beepocalypse" is not to be Bee-lieved.

A Noveber 11, 2005 article by Alicia Colon in the New York Sun described the ACSH presentation of the 2005 Sound Science Award to Michael Crichton:

A new video released by the magazine attempts to explain why there are more obese Americans today than 30-40 years ago. It claims that even if people eat healthy and exercise, it's easier to be obese today because of three factors -- but only one of those is likely to be correct.

The ALA does not approve of e-cigarettes, despite the fact that thousands of smokers have used them to quit. Is their reluctance to acknowledge the utility of e-cigarettes due to a financial conflict?

The authors had a clear strategy in mind: (1) Do a study on a common household object; (2) Produce boring data that doesn't surprise any microbiologist; (3) Write a provocative, fear-mongering headline; (4) Market it to a gullible, clickbait-hungry press, exhibiting no critical thinking; and (5) Watch the grant dollars roll in.

A team of scholars at Iowa State Univ. presented research validating what the scientific community has long suspected: Some anti-GMO groups are (1) either sending information to Russian propaganda sites to assist in their efforts to undermine American agricultural dominance or, (2) they're acting as "useful idiots" by promoting concern about America's food supply.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve in Year 2, so too does ACSH's need to cover it as comprehensively and accurately as possible. Further, we're gratified and appreciative to USA Today, which for the second time in three weeks published one of our Op-Ed columns, allowing another of ACSH's public-health messages to reach millions of Americans. This premier placement highlights the varied media exposure ACSH received during the month of February.

Junkscience.com has informed the New England Journal of Medicine that it may have been the victim of scientific misconduct regarding a paper recently published on air pollution and mortality. The contention was that material information was omitted from the work.

Any donor may request our latest publication free of charge, and everyone at the event got a copy. If you prefer to avoid paper, it's available as a PDF inside this article. Along with national coverage, the news was carried by regional papers from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Salt Lake Tribune to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Buffalo News.

The Bill Moyers PBS show NOW got one important thing right about genetically-modified crops. "There's no scientific evidence that eating these ingredients hurts our health," says narrator Mark Schapiro in the segment "Seeds of Conflict," which aired earlier this month. Even Moyers' introduction muted the usual "Frankenstein foods" tone of such stories, contrasting "the surprises of nature" with "the precision of science."

As the COVID-19 vaccines roll out, the anti-vaxxers have been increasingly more militant in their misinformation campaigns, actively and effectively dissuading vaccine uptake. The question becomes what can we do about this activity which harms us all? 

I pitched a column to the journal Science titled, "How I Became a Junk Science Debunker." It was initially accepted and went through two months (and nine rounds) of editing. At the last moment, however, the column was spiked by senior editor Tim Appenzeller (pictured). Why? Because I'm a corporate shill, of course.

Rarely does a week go by without some rather strange stories emerging about science and medicine. This past week was no exception.