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A politician seems to be filing lawsuits based on "green" donor agendas rather than on behalf of the public. That's a very bad thing.

A website that's purportedly focused on rigorous science journalism has published a conspiratorial anti-glyphosate rant, written by an environmental activist with no relevant academic credentials.

Since 2006, there has been a slow and steady drumbeat against trans fats in foods. Decades ago, when Natural Resources Defense Council and various other food fallacy groups latched onto saturated fats, we cautioned that the studies were epidemiological correlation, not science, and that the alternative might be worse.

1. On Science Codex, a take on how anti-science groups who are all working together, and even funded by the same groups, such as Organic Consumers Association and its vassal sites like Sourcewatch and US Right To Know, mobilize its bloggers for their clients. In this case they allege that Dr. Geoffrey Kabat, an advisor here who is an epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Dr.

If you're a scientist and public communicator, you are putting yourself in professional and personal danger. And as Kevin Folta's case shows, things are only getting worse.

The New York Times has again attacked an upstanding scientist based on claims made by duplicitous activist groups. This episode illustrates why the public's trust in media is plummeting.

Peer-reviewed research is the gold standard for science. We rely on that system to weed out the discoveries from the detritus. However, growing concerns over how the peer-review system operates are forcing the academic community to take a long, hard look at the process and ask, “How can we improve this?”

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has come under fire recently over a study it published that reported that fetuses probably cannot feel pain before the 29th week of pregnancy. It is not the science itself that is being called into question. Rather, it is the employment history of the study authors. One of the authors, Dr. Eleanor Drey, performs abortions and is the medical director of an abortion clinic. Another author, Susan Lee, is a medical student who worked at one time in the NARAL Pro-Choice Legal Department.

In a MedScape editorial, Robert Lowes defends Dr. Oz from criticism about weekly miracle cures and scare journalism by noting that the pro-science and health groups aligned against him support lower greenhouse gas emissions, in the form of natural gas, and the safety of genetically modified foods, implying that American CO2 emissions have not dropped due to cleaner natural gas and that GMO foods are harmful, both against the science consensus in earth science and biology, respectively.

Meet the D'Souza family of Sacramento.
The D'Souzas live in a pleasant ranch house on a pretty cul-de-sac in Natomas. Well, it used to be pleasant, until they started bolting up hideous layers of corrugated sheet metal all over the house. The D'Souzas say the metal is there to protect them from, to quote media reports, "unknown neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick."
Ah. Radio waves. Unknown neighbors.

Indian activist Vandana Shiva opposes the tools and practices of modern agriculture and science and advocates regressive policies that cause widespread malnourishment, famine, and death to the very people she claims to champion. And she's no friend of the environment, either. She should never be given a podium.

Continuing its trend of unjustified censorship, Twitter put a "warning" on one of our recent tweets "so people who don’t want to see sensitive content can avoid it." This protects nobody, but it denies the public access to credible health information.

A March 1, 2005 Editor and Publisher article by Brian Orloff about John Tierney taking William Safire's place on the New York Times editorial page (alongside his ideologically-opposed ex-girlfriend, Maureen Dowd) mentions the objections of Columbia Journalism Review's Zach Roth and, in the process, Roth's objections to ACSH (which accepts donations from anyone willing to give -- including you, or for that matter Greenpeace -- as long as no strings are attached to our research):

Once again, we’re told, the pharmaceutical industry is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans. This time the deceit is ghost writing, the practice by which someone other than the named author writes a clinical trial or scientific review article. The purported scandal is that ghost writing activities are supported financially by industry. As an April 15 Washington Post headline proclaimed, "Key Vioxx Research Was Written by Merck, Documents Allege."

An article late last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association should not just have come with a well-hidden edit showing the conflicts six months later. It should have come with a warning label stating that no real science was involved.

A recent article in Newsweek would have you believe that you're being poisoned by pesticides on apples. But you're not. It's just another example of "scare by omission of dose." Nothing new here. Nothing to worry about either. 

Peer review has been around for quite some time. But its history features interactions with the technology and forms of sharing information, with censorship, the rise and fall of generalists as well as concerns about marketing. 

If you read only one thing this week please consider the hypocrisy over the ban on mentholated cigarettes. We are made of stardust, and our energy within might mean we are made of music. Once upon a time, Barnes and Noble was a predator; nowadays, has it become a benefactor? The Scream, not the picture, but the sound?

When an issue arises over a scientific paper, there's a somewhat standard course of action that's used to handle disputes. However, when controversy recently erupted over a paper in the journal Nature, it was handled a different way – and some are wondering why. 

Portier, an activist statistician who pushed to get the common herbicide ingredient glyphosate listed as a "hazard" for carcinogen-labeling purposes while with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, only later revealed he was on the payroll of an anti-science litigation group that, at the time, was targeting glyphosate.

1. In US News and World Report, they cover a publicity briefing by Greg Glassman, CEO of the Crossfit extreme exercise empire. Glassman is trying to generate some traction for his recent publicity stunt claiming he knows that soda causes diabetes, despite the fact that the evidence is similar to claiming spoons do.

Scientific American's descent from respected publication to ideological tabloid is nearly complete. The magazine is now promoting anti-GMO activism under the guise of "social justice."

Much published science and the "knowledge" resulting from it is likely wrong and sends researchers chasing false leads. Without research integrity, we don’t know what we know, so it is incumbent on the scientific community to find solutions.

Re: "Health groups' donor ties questioned":
In light of the distortions promoted by the anti-consumer-choice, left-wing funded, advocacy group, Center For The Science in the Public Interest, below are some facts about the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). We are disappointed that your reporter did not contact us before publishing misleading information about our work.

"Lying" is considered one of those words civilized people should never say. That's why politicians never use it. Instead, their opponents are "misinformed" or "misspeaking" or "using alternative facts."