kabat

see enstrom, STAT

2 hits on iarc,

2nd note he's listed as FORMER contributor? also note it's a ctr-ctr attack on obscure eur guy?

cites tarone (who gives kabat's book 5 stars)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27552246

https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2018/08/17/with-defenders-like-these-the-international-agency-for-research-on-cancer-hardly-needs-enemies/#9c4e533139d3

I woke up this morning to find an article by Neil Pearce, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, entitled “Independent, rigorous, vilified - why attacks on the International Agency for Research on Cancer are unfair.”

Pearce opens his piece by endorsing last week’s ruling by a California court finding that Monsanto – the maker of the most widely-used herbicide Roundup -- was liable for a rare cancer that developed in a grounds-keeper who had used the herbicide. Roundup contains the chemical glyphosate as its active ingredient. The court decision awarded $289M to the plaintiff.

Pearce proceeds to point out, approvingly, that IARC’s 2015 assessment that glyphosate was a “probable carcinogen” played a prominent role in the court’s decision. One would expect that in what follows he would have delved into the controversy surrounding the question of whether glyphosate is a carcinogen and, thus, whether there is a justification for public concern.

But we get nothing of the sort. Instead, Pearce draws back to refer to “attacks not only on the IARC [glyphosate] decision, but also on some of those involved in the IARC Monograph meeting which made the decision, and on IARC itself. These events are not happening in a vacuum. There have been attacks on previous IARC decisions on potential causes of cancer such as formaldehyde, diesel fumes and radiofrequency electromagnetic field. More ominously, there are moves by some governments to threaten to cut the funding of IARC, in response to these recent ‘inconvenient’ decisions.”

To hear Pearce tell it, any criticism of IARC must be motivated by pro-industry interests. There is no allowance for the possibility that the wide range of respected voices from different disciplines, who have taken issue with IARC’s glyphosate (and other) decisions, could have been made in good faith and could be buttressed by hard facts.

In addition, Pearce – conveniently – ignores the fact that IARC’s assessment of glyphosate stands in sharp contrast to the judgment of virtually every other health and regulatory agency. These have found glyphosate to be safe (both environmentally and occupationally). They include: the U.S. EPA, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), WHO-FAO, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Health Canada, Australia’s Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), and others. To have pointed out this glaring disagreement with other international and national agencies might have undermined Pearce’s desire to attribute any criticism of IARC to pro-industry vested interests.

Key points in the critiques of IARC’s glyphosate assessment include the following:

1) Unlike virtually all other agencies, IARC engages in HAZARD ASSESSEMENT, rather than RISK ASSESSMENT. This means that IARC considers any scientific evidence of possible carcinogenicity, no matter how difficult to interpret or how irrelevant to actual human exposure. This ignores a corner-stone of toxicology which states that “the dose makes the poison.” It also leads to rampant confusion, since it fails to distinguish between exposures as they occur in the real world and far-fetched and improbable scenarios. But, rather than addressing or remediating this confusion, IARC doubles down on it because it is effective in arousing public concern.

2) The IARC Working Group which reviewed glyphosate distorted the findings of animal studies, ignoring the consistent absence of increased tumors in rats and mice exposed to increasing does of the chemical. Instead, it tortured the data to find evidence of a trend and conclude that the animal evidence provided support for glyphosate’s carcinogenicity. IARC has ignored rigorous re-analyses of the animal data exposing these improprieties.

3) IARC is hyper-alert to conflicts of interest involving industry. However, a key figure in the Agency’s glyphosate assessment has his own glaring conflict-of-interest. In 2014 an American scientist Chris Portier initially proposed that the Agency review glyphosate. He then participated on the glyphosate panel as an outside expert. Then, within weeks of the publication of IARC’s glyphosate judgment in March, 2015, Portier became a litigation consultant for two law firms that were bringing lawsuits against Monsanto on behalf of plaintiffs who claimed that their cancer was caused by the herbicide. This has come out in transcripts of lawsuits against Monsanto.

4) Finally, the IARC working group was aware of the existence of a large, well-designed epidemiologic study, the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) conducted by the National Cancer Institute. In a paper published in 2018 based on this large, high-quality prospective study there was no association of glyphosate exposure with any one of a large number of cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), or with cancer as a whole. The study followed a cohort of 54,251 applicators for about 16-20 years. Over this period, 5,779 participants developed cancers. Owing to its large sample size and its prospective design, this study is far superior to the much smaller and weaker epidemiologic studies that are cited in the IARC review. Additionally, a senior investigator on the AHS, Aaron Blair, chaired the Working Group that evaluated glyphosate. AHS investigators had published results regarding insecticides, fungicides, and fumigants in relation to the risk of NHL in a 2014 publication. However, the results regarding herbicides, including glyphosate, were not included in that paper. IARC did not include the most recent AHS results in its glyphosate deliberations on the grounds that they had not been published at the time of the Working Group deliberations. However, Blair, who was an author on the 2014 paper certainly knew at the time of the Working Group deliberations in 2015 that the results for glyphosate and NHL were completely negative. Furthermore, the AHS was a well-documented study, whose methods were widely known and accepted. Scores of papers using its data had been published. Therefore, the IARC Working Group could have considered the unpublished data in their assessment. Had they done so, this might have had the effect of tempering the conclusion that glyphosate was a “probable carcinogen.” The responsibility would appear to lie with Blair, who kept the updated results to himself. We will never know why the NCI group didn’t publish the updated glyphosate results sooner. But the reasons that have been given publicly are unconvincing.

None of this is worthy of Pearce’s attention. Rather than so much as acknowledge these substantive points, let alone address them, he delivers a blanket, generic, defense of the Agency. IARC, he tells us, is “by far the most authoritative agency in its field.” It is “a beacon of independence and objectivity.” “…there is no other agency which even comes close to IARC in terms of independence, objectivity, and transparency.” He refers to the 120 scientists who signed on to a similarly generic defense of IARC, which touted the Agency’s mission and brushed aside any substantive criticism. Thus, Pearce’s whole argument is based on an appeal to authority and to numbers of signatories. This amounts to a doctrine of IARC’s infallibility.

What is most shocking are Pearce’s lack of intellectual honesty and his poor judgment in thinking that his substance-free “defense” makes a contribution to the controversy over glyphosate. Or that it will dispel the questions looming over IARC. Although he appears unaware of it, Pearce's defense is a glaring symptom of what's wrong with IARC.

Geoffrey Kabat is a cancer epidemiologist and author most recently of Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks. Follow him at geokabat@twitter

bk blurb

Do cell phones cause brain cancer? Does BPA threaten our health? How safe are certain dietary supplements, especially those containing exotic herbs or small amounts of toxic substances? Is the HPV vaccine safe? We depend on science and medicine as never before, yet there is widespread misinformation and confusion, amplified by the media, regarding what influences our health. In Getting Risk Right, Geoffrey C. Kabat shows how science works―and sometimes doesn't―and what separates these two very different outcomes.

Kabat seeks to help us distinguish between claims that are supported by solid science and those that are the result of poorly designed or misinterpreted studies. By exploring different examples, he explains why certain risks are worth worrying about, while others are not. He emphasizes the variable quality of research in contested areas of health risks, as well as the professional, political, and methodological factors that can distort the research process. Drawing on recent systematic critiques of biomedical research and on insights from behavioral psychology, Getting Risk Rightexamines factors both internal and external to the science that can influence what results get attention and how questionable results can be used to support a particular narrative concerning an alleged public health threat. In this book, Kabat provides a much-needed antidote to what has been called "an epidemic of false claims."

Geoffrey Kabat's vital, wide-ranging book cannot have arrived at a more fortuitous time. As individuals and societies, we are constantly asked to gauge risks―and we often do so hastily or irrationally, with grave consequences. In Getting Risk Right, Kabat provides a crucial framework to think about risks, biases, and judgment. Everyone should read his analysis―at once clear-eyed, thoughtful, and beautifully written―to understand the nature of risk. I cannot overstate the importance of this book. (Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies)

Some risks are real, while others are much feared and speculated about, but of no portent. This important book by Geoffrey Kabat shows how the science of studying risks can lead to major discoveries that can improve the lives of millions by identifying and validating risks that do matter; or can ruin lives by propagating spurious, nonexistent risks in the public mind and in the scientific literature. Getting Risk Right carefully surveys a scientific field that is often the topic of hot debate and offers a balanced presentation. It is a fascinating read. (John Ioannidis, professor of medicine and health research and policy, Stanford University)

Zika, Ebola, vaccines, dioxin, radon, black mold, environmental toxins. The media constantly bombards us with stories about unseen agents causing insidious harms. In Getting Risk Right, Geoffrey Kabat uses four case studies―BPA, cell phones, the HPV vaccine, and dietary supplements―to teach us not only whether these products are harmful but also how to grade information. Using Kabat's method, readers will be able to determine whether the next media-infused risk is a real one. Filled with cartoons, case histories, literary references, and fascinating asides, Getting Risk Right is the last book you will ever need to read on this subject. (Paul A. Offit, author of Autism's False Prophets)

Geoffrey Kabat's writing, as usual, is phenomenally clear and expressive. His logical cadences are both airtight and a pleasure to read. His insights into the workings and mis-workings of science, the sociology of science, and the interplay of personalities and organizations are penetrating and precise, and above all original. (Steven D. Stellman, professor of clinical epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health)

What matters most? How can we use scientific findings intelligently to set our public priorities? Through engaging anecdotes, and a clear-eyed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of scientific work, Getting Risk Right helps us answer those questions. Perhaps more importantly, Dr. Kabat enhances our understanding of how science leads to action, and how we can better use science to inform a more rational and productive public agenda. (Sandro Galea, Dean, Boston University School of Public Health)

An important study that teaches how to decipher science and medical news. (Library Journal)

It is not easy feat to take complex issues and make them both understandable, easily readable and interesting, but Kabat does just that in Getting Risk Right. For people who are trying to sort through the deluge of conflicting information that we see every day, this book is a must. (Josh Bloom American Council on Science and Health)

Kabat writes clearly, but his discussions of association, causality and toxicology are, at times, a bit technical for the general reader. More intriguing ― and more unique, in my experience ― is his insider's dissection of the psychology of how environmental studies are funded, reported and interpreted by their authors and by various audiences. (Washington Post)

Excellent.... A potent antidote to the toxic misinformation polluting our public health discourse. (Reason)

This book will provide you with defensive armor against alarmist headlines and it will help you judge the credibility of new studies. Highly recommended. (Harriet Hall, MD Science-Based Medicine)

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About the Author

Geoffrey Kabat is Senior epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center. He is the author of Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology and Getting Risk Right,both with CUP. He also blogs regularly for Forbes magazine.

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1 edition (November 22, 2016)

The book can engage and enlighten regarding the complex context in which known and suspected health risks are identified, explored, and acted on. (Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H The New England Journal of Medicine)

A strong, valuable corrective to public understanding of the debate of environmental hazards... Highly Recommended. (CHOICE)

Reading and reflecting on the thesis of this book can only help epidemiologists be more aware of our place in society and thus be more effective contributors. (David A. Savitz American Journal of Epidemiology)

With clarity and dispassion, Geoffrey C. Kabat challenges widespread beliefs that secondhand smoke, low levels of radon, and other ostensible environmental nemeses are certain killers. In making his case, Kabat draws extensively on scientific evidence while shunning rhetoric and political posturing. The result is an admirable search for scientific truth amid a sea of conflicting and often uninformed opinions. (Leonard Cole, Rutgers University)

Geoffrey C. Kabat, a respected epidemiologist, provides an insider's account of how a number of ostensible health hazards have been blown out of proportion. While we face a daily barrage of health scares, Kabat cuts through the confusion and provides a lucid and rigorous rationale for rejecting much of the fear culture that permeates our society. (Shelly Ungar, University of Toronto)

This book does an exceptionally good job, first by putting epidemiology within the context of public health and then by explaining key terms, concepts, and methods. It provides a penetrating treatment of a difficult and complex subject in a readily understandable way. (Steven D. Stellman, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University)

"Kabat, who wrote Hyping Health Risks--a fascinating and detailed examination of how we fell for certain, illusory environmental hazards--is possibly the only epidemiologist in the world to have also published a book on Dostoyevsky (he got a Ph.D in Russian and comparative literature from Columbia before switching tracks). And the background in literary analysis and theory adds a crucial ability to explain why we, as a society, are prone to turning hypothetical risks into "social facts." The upshot is that most public alarms about health risks dispense with the tools required to make sense of the alarm--and we end up with "disembodied findings" and ideology." (Trevor Butterworth Forbes)

"Health scares come and go, but they often have a tenuous scientific basis. Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist, systematically rips through cancer alerts that overrode scientific rigor in recent decades. In so doing, he dispels the dubious science underlying the scares and explains how public confusion can come about. He extends his critique to debates linking radon gas exposure and secondhand cigarette smoke exposure to lung cancer. Those chapters will ruffle some feathers, but Kabat is unafraid of controversy." (Nathan Seppa ScienceNews)

rich and valuable... (Trevor Butterworth Forbes.com)

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About the Author

Product details

Paperback: 262 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1 edition (December 6, 2011)

1st

https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2017/10/23/iarcs-glyphosate-gate-scandal/

IOct 23, 2017, 05:43am

IARC's Glyphosate-gate Scandal

Geoffrey KabatFormer Contributor

Science & Technology

Converging evidence points to the agency's skewing its glyphosate report to reach a desired conclusion

In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, issued a reportlabeling the weed killer glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” This ruling caused consternation in the scientific and agricultural communities. Glyphosate, which is manufactured by Monsanto and is the active ingredient in the company’s popular Roundup, is one of the most widely-used herbicides worldwide. It is cheap, effective, and has low toxicity. IARC’s ruling goes against the assessment of every other agency that has evaluated the compound, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, and the World Health Organization, of which IARC is a part.

IARC, which is based in Lyon, France, makes its assessments by convening a panel of experts to consider all the available evidence from human, animal, and mechanistic studies regarding a potential cancer threat. The agency then classifies a given substance as carcinogenic (Group 1), probably carcinogenic (Group 2A), possibly carcinogenic (Group 2B), or not classifiable as to carcinogenicity. For its glyphosate evaluation IARC formed a Working Group of 16 experts who reviewed the evidence for nearly a year before issuing its report in March 2015. The Working Group was subdivided into subgroups to assess the human evidence, the animal studies, and the mechanistic/laboratory studies. At the end of the review process, the panel designated glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” based on the animal evidence, which was judged to be “sufficient.” We will come back to this point later.

What is not widely known is that the agency’s classification of a substance does not take into account the degree of exposure to that substance in the general population. Rather, in IARC’s terminology, it evaluates “hazard” – the possibility that a substance could cause cancer under some possible condition – as opposed to “risk,” which refers to the likelihood that actual exposure in the real world might cause cancer. Needless to say, when headlines trumpet the latest IARC assessment, the public and the media assume that classification of an agent as “probably carcinogenic” must have some direct relevance to human health, even when actual human exposures are at levels too low to cause adverse health effects.

Over the past few years, when scientists have questioned the agency’s process and some of its recent classifications, rather than addressing specific criticisms, IARC officials have argued that their methods are sound and not in need of improvement, and have implied that their critics have conflicts-of-interest.

In the past year, however, as IARC’s glyphosate report has been subjected to scrutiny by scientists and investigative journalists, a number of increasingly disturbing questions have come to light. Three major, independent pieces of the “back-story” on IARC’s glyphosate assessment are presented below.

Reanalysis of the animal and epidemiologic evidence

In August 2016, Robert Tarone published a commentary entitled “On the International Agency for Research on Cancer classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen” in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention. Tarone, who is a statistician who spent most of his career at the National Cancer Institute, re-examined the animal studies cited by IARC. In such studies, typically a strain of rodents is divided into one or more “treatment” groups and a control group – and the former is exposed to a test substance at increasing dose levels - in this case, glyphosate - while the control group is unexposed to the test substance. As animals die they are examined, and at the end of the study the remaining animals are sacrificed and their organs are examined for benign and malignant changes.

What is crucial is to determine whether the treatment group shows robust evidence of a greater “tumor yield” compared to controls. In relatively small animal experiments there will likely be ups-and-down, but one is looking for a consistent excess of tumors in the treated group. Most persuasive would be evidence of a dose-response relationship – that is, the more of the substance that the test animals are given, the greater the tumor yield. Furthermore, one might expect to see consistency in male and female animals, if the substance is carcinogenic.

What Tarone found is that the IARC panel highlighted certain positive results from the rodent studies they relied upon in the deliberations, and, glaringly, ignored contradictory negative results from the same studies. He also found that an inappropriate statistical test was used, making the data look more impressive than they actually were. Tarone concluded, “When all relevant data from the rodent carcinogenicity studies of glyphosate relied on by the Working Group are evaluated together, it is clear that the conclusion that there is sufficient evidence that glyphosate is an animal carcinogen is not supported empirically. Even a conclusion that there is limited evidence of animal carcinogenicity would be difficult to support…”

In reviewing the human (i.e., epidemiologic) studies, Tarone found that IARC’s case for glyphosate’s association with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma also resulted from favoring certain study results, rather than considering the totality of the evidence.

In the past week, two new insights into the agency’s glyphosate assessment have emerged, coalescing into a full-blown scandal.

Revelations from a deposition in a law suit against Monsanto

A blogger, who uses the pen-name Risk-Monger, examined the transcripts of a deposition related to cases against Monsanto involving the scientist Christopher Portier. Portier, an American statistician who worked for the federal government for over thirty years, was the special advisor to the IARC panel that issued the report declaring glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic.” The transcripts show that during the same week in March 2015 in which IARC published its glyphosate opinion, Portier signed a lucrative contract to act as a litigation consultant for two law firms that were preparing to sue Monsanto on behalf of glyphosate cancer victims. His contract contained a confidentiality clause barring Portier from disclosing his employment to other parties. Portier’s financial conflict-of-interest has been confirmed by the UK newspaper The Times.

It turns out that it was Portier himself, who as chair of an IARC committee in 2014 had proposed that the agency undertake a review of glyphosate in the first place. He then went on to play a key role in the deliberations resulting in the IARC conclusion that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. In view of the new revelations, it appears that, rather than being the objective scientist he has portrayed himself to be, he may have had a preconceived plan to use the IARC ruling, which he played a major role in shaping, to cash in on the ensuing litigation campaign. In the years following the IARC glyphosate decision, Portier has frequently claimed that he had no conflicts-of-interest and that he has never taken a cent for his glyphosate work. At the same time, he and IARC generally have portrayed any scientist who questioned the evidence of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity as being motivated by pro-industry bias. This has proved an effective tactic for suppressing substantive arguments based on the scientific evidence.

IARC’s editorial process in the glyphosate report

On the heels of Risk-Monger’s exposé, three days ago, Kate Kelland, a journalist for Reuters, who has been investigating IARC’s recent assessments, published findings indicating that the glyphosate document underwent significant editing to remove null results and to strengthen positive conclusions. Kelland obtained a draft of the key chapter of the report devoted to animal studies, which became available as part of the lawsuits against Monsanto, and she compared the draft with the final, published report. She found 10 significant instances in which “a negative conclusion about glyphosate leading to tumors was either deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one.” Kelland’s findings indicate that the original draft found little animal evidence that glyphosate was a carcinogen. Her textual analysis provides confirmation of Tarone’s independent re-analysis of the original studies. Furthermore, Portier admits in his deposition that the interim report produced by the animal subgroup during the Working Group meeting also concluded that there was “limited evidence of animal carcinogenicity.” He proclaims ignorance of when or how the conclusion was upgraded to “sufficient evidence of animal carcinogenicity” during the deliberations of the entire Working Group. It is crucial to repeat that the classification of glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans relied entirely upon the conclusion that there was sufficient evidence of animal carcinogenicity (because the epidemiologic evidence was not strong).

All of this points to a trusted agency redacting the evidence to suit its predetermined and preferred story-line.

What is at stake

In addition to providing the basis for litigation by US law firms, IARC’s 2015 opinion on glyphosate provided powerful ammunition to environmental activists, anti-GMO groups, NGO’s, and organic foods industry lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic in their campaign to ban glyphosate. For the past two years, the European Union has been trying to reauthorize the weed killer but has been opposed by politicians in Member States who have been swayed by the anti-glyphosate crusade. A decision to ban or to phase out use of glyphosate will hurt both farmers and consumers by decreasing crop yields, increasing the costs of produce, and requiring substitution of herbicides about which less is known and which may pose a greater health risk. A final decision is expected next month.

The revelations about IARC’s glyphosate determination carry crucial lessons regarding relations among scientific evidence, policy, and public opinion. Decisions about the safety of chemical residues in the environment are challenging and require critical evaluation of the available evidence by experts in the relevant disciplines. These can only be achieved through a hashing out of the relevant evidence in a forum in which qualified scientists with no professional or political stake in the question at hand have an important role in order to keep the proceedings honest.

In the highly-charged and polarized climate surrounding questions involving public health and the environment, it is only too easy for advocates to gain support for their cause by appealing to public concern. Often this concern relates to trace levels of a chemical in our food, water, or environment. But the two sides in the debate are not equal. Evidence, no matter how weak or questionable, of a positive association is readily accepted as pointing to a serious threat. In contrast, even when there is superior evidence that calls into question the existence of threat, this simply does not have the same power to persuade concerned citizens.

A closely related point is that the prevailing view of conflicts-of-interest is one-sided and naïve and represents a major obstacle to achieving rationality in the public discussion of hotly contested questions like glyphosate. To be sure, industry has its clear interests, and, of course, these should be taken into account. In fact, the awareness of industry interests is, by now, built into our thinking. Things are quite different when it comes to seeing the interests at work on the other side. Given that deliberations on these matters involve human beings, we need to take it as axiomatic that all parties may be influenced by financial considerations – or equally importantly -- by ideological and professional agendas. We delude ourselves if we think that environmental activists and allied scientists (including academic and government researchers) engaged in these questions are free of their own interests.

The recent revelations regarding IARC’s glyphosate assessment throw these issues into stark relief. Scientists and agencies need to be transparent. It’s not acceptable for an agency to argue that “we are impartial authorities, trust us.” Rather, we should follow the rule, “Trust but verify” – or rather, “Distrust but verify.” These revelations make it clear that, where high-stakes issues involve powerful beliefs, substantial financial rewards, and opportunities for advancement, neither individuals nor authoritative agencies can be assumed to be free of conflicts-of-interest.

Check out my website.

Geoffrey Kabat

I am a cancer epidemiologist who has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Stony Brook University Medical School. I have studied a wide rang...

https://www.ecowatch.com/reuters-monsanto-2465156788.html

Are Corporate Ties Influencing Reuters Science Coverage?

By Stacy Malkan

Ever since they classified the world's most widely used herbicide as "probably carcinogenic to humans," a team of international scientists at the World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer research group have been under withering attack by the agrichemical industry and its surrogates.

In a front-page series, The Monsanto Papers, the French newspaper Le Monde described the attacks as "the pesticide giant's war on science," and reported, "to save glyphosate, the firm [Monsanto] undertook to harm the United Nations agency against cancer by all means."

One key weapon in industry's arsenal has been the reporting of Kate Kelland, a veteran Reuters reporter based in London.

With two industry-fed scoops and a special report, reinforced by her regular beat reporting, Kelland has aimed a torrent of critical reporting at the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), portraying the group and its scientists as out of touch and unethical, and leveling accusations about conflicts of interest and suppressed information in their decision-making.

The IARC working group of scientists did not conduct new research, but reviewed years of published and peer-reviewed research before concluding that there was limited evidence of cancer in humans from real-world exposures to glyphosate and "sufficient" evidence of cancer in studies on animals. IARC also concluded there was strong evidence of genotoxicity for glyphosate alone, as well as glyphosate used in formulations such as Monsanto's Roundup brand of herbicide, whose use has increased dramatically as Monsanto has marketed crop strains genetically modified to be "Roundup Ready."

But in writing about the IARC decision, Kelland has ignored much of the published research backing the classification, and focused on industry talking points and criticisms of the scientists in seeking to diminish their analysis. Her reporting has relied heavily on pro-industry sources, while failing to disclose their industry connections; contained errors that Reuters has refused to correct; and presented cherry-picked information out of context from documents she did not provide to her readers.

Raising further questions about her objectivity as a science reporter are Kelland's ties to the Science Media Centre (SMC), a controversial nonprofit PR agency in the UK that connects scientists with reporters, and gets its largest block of funding from industry groups and companies, including chemical industry interests.

SMC, which has been called "science's PR agency," launched in 2002 partly as an effort to tamp down news stories driven by groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, according to its founding report. SMC has been accused of playing down the environmental and human health risks of some controversial products and technologies, according to multiple researchers who have studied the group.

Kelland's bias in favor of the group is evident, as she appears in the SMC promotional video and the SMC promotional report, regularly attends SMC briefings, speaks at SMC workshops and attended meetings in Indiato discuss setting up an SMC office there.

Neither Kelland nor her editors at Reuters would respond to questions about her relationship with SMC, or to specific criticisms about her reporting.

Fiona Fox, director of SMC, said her group did not work with Kelland on her IARC stories or provide sources beyond those included in SMC's press releases. It is clear, however, that Kelland's reporting on glyphosate and IARC mirrors the views put forth by SMC experts and industry groups on those topics.

Reuters Takes on Cancer Scientist

On June 14, Reuters published a special report by Kelland accusing Aaron Blair, an epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute and chair of the IARC panel on glyphosate, of withholding important data from its cancer assessment.

Kelland's story went so far as to suggest that the information supposedly withheld could have changed IARC's conclusion that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. Yet the data in question was but a small subset of epidemiology data gathered through a long-term project known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). An analysis of several years of data about glyphosate from the AHS had already been published and was considered by IARC, but a newer analysis of unfinished, unpublished data was not considered, because IARC rules call for relying only on published data.

Kelland's thesis that Blair withheld crucial data was at odds with the source documents on which she based her story, but she did not provide readers with links to any of those documents, so readers could not check the veracity of the claims for themselves. Her bombshell allegations were then widely circulated, repeated by reporters at other news outlets (includingMother Jones) and immediately deployed as a lobbying tool by the agrichemical industry.

After obtaining the actual source documents, Carey Gillam, a former Reuters reporter and now research director of U.S Right to Know (the nonprofit group where I also work), laid out multiple errors and omissions in Kelland's piece.

The analysis provides examples of key claims in Kelland's article, including a statement supposedly made by Blair, that are not supported by the 300-page deposition of Blair conducted by Monsanto's attorneys, or by other source documents.

Kelland's selective presentation of the Blair deposition also ignored what contradicted her thesis—for example, Blair's many affirmations of research showing glyphosate's connections to cancer, as Gillam wrote in a Huffington Post article.

Kelland inaccurately described Blair's deposition and related materials as "court documents," implying they were publicly available; in fact, they were not filed in court, and presumably were obtained from Monsanto's attorneys or surrogates. (The documents were available only to attorneys involved in the case, and plaintiff's attorneys have said they did not provide them to Kelland.)

Reuters has refused to correct the errors in the piece, including the false claim about the origin of the source documents and an inaccurate description of a key source, statistician Bob Tarone, as "independent of Monsanto." In fact, Tarone had received a consultancy payment from Monsanto for his efforts to discredit IARC.

In response to a USRTK request to correct or retract the Kelland article, Reutersglobal enterprises editor Mike Williams wrote in a June 23 email:

We have reviewed the article and the reporting on which it was based. That reporting included the deposition to which you refer, but was not confined to it. The reporter, Kate Kelland, was also in contact with all the people mentioned in the story and many others, and studied other documents. In the light of that review, we do not consider the article to be inaccurate or to warrant retraction.

Williams declined to address the false citing of "court documents" or the inaccurate description of Tarone as an independent source.

Since then, the lobbying tool Reuters handed to Monsanto has grown legs and run wild. A June 24 editorial by the St. Louis Post Dispatch added errors on top of the already misleading reporting. By mid-July, right-wing blogs were using the Reuters story to accuse IARC of defrauding U.S. taxpayers, pro-industry news sites were predicting the story would be "the final nail in the coffin" of cancer claims about glyphosate, and a fake science news group was promoting Kelland's story on Facebook with a phony headline claiming that IARC scientists had confessed to a cover-up.

Bacon Attack

This was not the first time Kelland had relied on Bob Tarone as a key source, and failed to disclose his industry connections, in an article attacking IARC.

An April 2016 special investigation by Kelland, Who Says Bacon Is Bad?, portrayed IARC as a confusing agency that is bad for science. The piece was built largely on quotes from Tarone, two other pro-industry sources whose industry connections were also not disclosed, and one anonymous observer.

IARC's methods are "poorly understood," "do not serve the public well," sometimes lack scientific rigor, are "not good for science," "not good for regulatory agencies" and do the public "a disservice," the critics said.

The agency, Tarone said, is "naïve, if not unscientific"—an accusation emphasized with capital letters in a sub-headline.

Tarone works for the pro-industry International Epidemiology Institute, and was once involved with a controversial cell phone study, funded in part by the cell phone industry, that found no cancer connection to cell phones, contrary to independently funded studies of the same issue.

The other critics in Kelland's bacon story were Paulo Boffetta, a controversial ex-IARC scientist who wrote a paper defending asbestos while also receiving money to defend the asbestos industry in court; and Geoffrey Kabat, who once partnered with a tobacco industry-funded scientist to write a paper defending secondhand smoke.

Kabat also serves on the advisory board of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a corporate front group. The day the Reuters story hit, ACSH posted a blog item bragging that Kelland had used its advisor Kabat as a source to discredit IARC.

The industry connections of her sources, and their history of taking positions at odds with mainstream science, seems relevant, especially since the IARC bacon exposé was paired with a Kelland article about glyphosate that accused IARC advisor Chris Portier of bias because of his affiliation with an environmental group.

The conflict-of-interest framing served to discredit a letter, organized by Portier and signed by 94 scientists, that described "serious flaws" in a European Union risk assessment that exonerated glyphosate of cancer risk.

The Portier attack, and the good science/bad science theme, echoed through chemical industry PR channels on the same day the Kelland articles appeared.

IARC Pushes Back

In October 2016, in another exclusive scoop, Kelland portrayed IARC as a secretive organization that had asked its scientists to withhold documents pertaining to the glyphosate review. The article was based on correspondence provided to Kelland by a pro-industry law group.

In response, IARC took the unusual step of posting Kelland's questions and the answers they had sent her, which provided context left out of the Reuters story.

IARC explained that Monsanto's lawyers were asking scientists to turn over draft and deliberative documents, and in light of the ongoing lawsuits against Monsanto, "the scientists felt uncomfortable releasing these materials, and some felt that they were being intimidated." The agency said they had faced similar pressure in the past to release draft documents to support legal actions involving asbestos and tobacco, and that there was an attempt to draw deliberative IARC documents into PCB litigation.

The story didn't mention those examples, or the concerns about draft scientific documents ending up in lawsuits, but the piece was heavy on critiques of IARC, describing it as a group "at odds with scientists around the world," which "has caused controversy" with cancer assessments that "can cause unnecessary health scares."

IARC has "secret agendas" and its actions were "ridiculous," according to a Monsanto executive quoted in the story.

IARC wrote in response (emphasis in original):

The article by Reuters follows a pattern of consistent but misleading reports about the IARC Monographs Programme in some sections of the media beginning after glyphosate was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans.

IARC also pushed back on Kelland's reporting about Blair, noting the conflict of interest with her source Tarone and explaining that IARC's cancer evaluation program does not consider unpublished data, and "does not base its evaluations on opinions presented in media reports," but on the "systematic assembly and review of all publicly available and pertinent scientific studies, by independent experts, free from vested interests."

PR Agency Narrative

The Science Media Centre—which Kelland has said has influenced her reporting—does have vested interests, and has also been criticized for pushing pro-industry science views. Current and past funders include Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont, Coca-Cola and food and chemical industry trade groups, as well as government agencies, foundations and universities.

By all accounts, SMC is influential in shaping how the media cover certain science stories, often getting its expert reaction quotes in media stories and driving coverage with its press briefings.

As Kelland explained in the SMC promotional video, "By the end of a briefing, you understand what the story is and why it's important."

That is the point of the SMC effort: to signal to reporters whether stories or studies merit attention, and how they should be framed.

Sometimes, SMC experts downplay risk and offer assurances to the public about controversial products or technologies; for example, researchers have criticized SMC's media efforts on fracking, cell phone safety, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and genetically engineered foods.

SMC campaigns sometimes feed into lobbying efforts. A 2013 Nature article explained how SMC turned the tide on media coverage of animal/human hybrid embryos away from ethical concerns and toward their importance as a research tool—and thus stopped government regulations.

The media researcher hired by SMC to analyze the effectiveness of that campaign, Andy Williams of Cardiff University, came to see the SMC model as problematic, worrying that it stifled debate. Williams described SMC briefings as tightly managed events pushing persuasive narratives.

On the topic of glyphosate cancer risk, SMC offers a clear narrative in its press releases.

The IARC cancer classification, according to SMC experts, "failed to include critical data," was based on "a rather selective review" and on evidence that "appears a bit thin" and "overall does not support such a high-level classification." Monsanto and other industry groups promoted the quotes.

SMC experts had a much more favorable view of risk assessments conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which cleared glyphosate of human cancer concerns.

EFSA's conclusion was "more scientific, pragmatic and balanced" than IARC's, and the ECHA report was objective, independent, comprehensive and "scientifically justified."

Kelland's reporting in Reuters echoes those pro-industry themes, and sometimes used the same experts, such as aNovember 2015 story about why European-based agencies gave contradictory advice about the cancer risk of glyphosate. Her story quoted two experts directly from an SMC release, then summarized their views:

In other words, IARC is tasked with highlighting anything that might in certain conditions, however rare, be able to cause cancer in people. EFSA, on the other hand, is concerned with real life risks and whether, in the case of glyphosate, there is evidence to show that when used in normal conditions, the pesticide poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.

Kelland included two brief reactions from environmentalists: Greenpeace called the EFSA review "whitewash," and Jennifer Sass from the Natural Resources Defense Council said IARC's review was "a much more robust, scientifically defensible and public process involving an international committee of non-industry experts." (An NRDC statement on glyphosate put it this way: "IARC Got It Right, EFSA Got It From Monsanto").

Kelland's story followed up the environmental group comments with "critics of IARC ... say its hazard identification approach is becoming meaningless for consumers, who struggle to apply its advice to real life," and ends with quotes from a scientist who "declares an interest as having acted as a consultant for Monsanto."

When asked about the criticisms of pro-industry bias of the SMC, Fox responded:

We listen carefully to any criticism from the scientific community or news journalists working for UK media, but we do not receive criticism of pro-industry bias from these stakeholders. We reject the charge of pro-industry bias, and our work reflects the evidence and views of the 3,000 eminent scientific researchers on our database. As an independent press office focusing on some of the most controversial science stories, we fully expect criticism from groups outside mainstream science.

Expert Conflicts

Scientific experts do not always disclose their conflicts of interest in news releases issued by SMC, nor in their high-profile roles as decision-makers about the cancer risk of chemicals like glyphosate.

Frequent SMC expert Alan Boobis, professor of biochemical pharmacology at Imperial College London, offers views in SMC releases on aspartame ("not a concern"), glyphosate in urine (no concern), insecticides and birth defects ("premature to draw conclusions"), alcohol, GMO corn, trace metals, lab rodent diets and more.

The ECHA decision that glyphosate is not a carcinogen "is to be congratulated," according to Boobis, and the IARC decision that it is probably carcinogenic "is not a cause for undue alarm," because it did not take into account how pesticides are used in the real world.

Boobis declared no conflicts of interest in the IARC release or any of the earlier SMC releases that carry his quotes. But he then sparked a conflict-of-interest scandal when news broke that he held leadership positions with the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a pro-industry group, at the same time he co-chaired a UN panel that found glyphosate unlikely to pose a cancer riskthrough diet. (Boobis is currently chair of the ILSI Board of Trustees, and vice president ad interim of ILSI/Europe).

ILSI has received six-figure donations from Monsanto and CropLife International, the pesticide trade association. Professor Angelo Moretto, who co-chaired the UN panel on glyphosate along with Boobis, also held a leadership role in ILSI. Yet the panel declared no conflicts of interest.

Kelland did not report on those conflicts, though she did write about the findings of the "UN experts" who exonerated glyphosate of cancer risk, and she once recycled a Boobis quote from an SMC press release for an article about tainted Irish pork. (The risk to consumers was low).

When asked about the SMC conflict of interest disclosure policy, and why Boobis' ISLI connection was not disclosed in SMC releases, Fox responded:

We ask all researchers we use to provide their COIs and proactively make those available to journalists. In line with several other COI policies, we are unable to investigate every COI, though we welcome journalists doing so.

Boobis could not be reached for comment, but told the Guardian, "My role in ILSI (and two of its branches) is as a public sector member and chair of their boards of trustees, positions which are not remunerated."

But the conflict "sparked furious condemnation from green MEPs and NGOs," the Guardian reported, "intensified by the [UN panel] report's release two days before an EU relicensing vote on glyphosate, which will be worth billions of dollars to industry."

And so goes it with the tangled web of influence involving corporations, science experts, media coverage and the high-stakes debate about glyphosate, now playing out on the world stage as Monsanto faces lawsuits over the chemical due to cancer claims, and seeks to complete a $66 billion deal with Bayer.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., as Bloomberg reported on July 13: Does the World's Top Weed Killer Cause Cancer? Trump's EPA Will Decide.

Stacy Malkan is co-founder and co-director of the consumer group U.S. Right to Know. Reposted with permission from FAIR.

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A big shoutout to ACSH advisor (and junk science debunker extraordinaire) Dr.Geoffrey Kabat for his recent *Forbes* op-ed entitled “What Is Really At Stake In The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subpoena Of EPA Data.”

This time, Dr. Kabat, a Senior Epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a member of ACSH’s scientific advisory panel, takes on the “science” of air pollution regulation. In reality, the science is really based on politics — something that he regularly writes about.

In particular, Dr. Kabat asks whether the EPA’s regulation of air pollution under the Clean Air Act—first passed in 1963, and amended multiple times—is based on science.

He says, “For the first time in 21 years the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology issued a subpoena requiring the EPA to hand over the data from two scientific studies, which provide the basis for most of the regulations.”

Why is this necessary? It would seem that the reason is purely bureaucratic and political.

Kabat continues, “According to the committee’s chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R – TX), the subpoena comes after nearly two years of requests for EPA to make the data available. He argues that the scientific evidence used to justify new regulations that will cost billions of dollars should be accessible to independent researchers and other groups, rather than hinging on the analysis and interpretation of a small group of academic researchers.”

ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom comments, “Fighting the pollution of science by special-interest groups and politics is one of the guiding principles upon which ACSH was founded. Dr. Kabat’s op-ed is a fine example of what we deal with all the time. I encourage you to read it, although any idealists out there who still believe that sound science is reliably transformed into sound policy better have a strong stomach.”

http://acsh.org/**2013**/09/acsh-advisor-asks-what-is-the-epa-hiding/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2013/09/23/what-is-really-at-stake-in-the-republican-partys-subpoena-of-epa-data/

Last month Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched a new offensive in the long-running battle over the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of air pollution under the Clean Air Act. For the first time in 21 years the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology issued a subpoena requiring the EPA to hand over the data from two scientific studies, which provide the basis for most of the regulations.

According to the committee’s chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R – TX), the subpoena comes after nearly two years of requests for EPA to make the data available. He argues that the scientific evidence used to justify new regulations that will cost billions of dollars should be accessible to independent researchers and other groups, rather than hinging on the analysis and interpretation of a small group of academic researchers. In an op-ed in the *Wall Street Journal*, he charged the EPA with basing its rule-making on “secret science.”

The committee, however, split along party lines on whether to subpoena the data. The ranking Democratic member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – TX) characterized Chairman Smith’s action as an attempt to make the data available to “industry hacks” in order to discredit the research and weaken clean air regulation.

While the subpoena backed by only one party can easily be viewed as a political move, there is a vital issue at stake, and this must not be hijacked by politics.

The two studies in question are the Harvard Six Cities Study (HSCS) and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II). Both studies were initiated in the 1980s and both linked individual information on cohort members to air pollution data obtained from monitoring stations. The HSCS enrolled 8,111 adults in 6 US cities and followed the cohort for 14-16 years. The CPS II used data on roughly 500,000 adults for whom air pollution data for metropolitan areas throughout the US was available and followed the cohort for 16 years.

Both studies showed that exposure to fine particle air pollution (that is, particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5) was linked with increased mortality. Their results provide the basis for most EPA regulations targeting air quality and have been used to make claims of large numbers of lives saved due to regulation.

However, the association observed in these studies was a weak one and raises a number of questions that have not been adequately explored. First, the association of PM2.5 with mortality shows geographic heterogeneity – no such association is seen in the western US, where the climate is dry and PM2.5 make-up differs from that in the eastern US.

Second, the results of the studies have been presented in a way that focuses narrowly on PM2.5 and precludes putting the association in perspective relative to other predictors of mortality, including cigarette smoking, income, and other factors.

Third, reports from these two studies tend to cite only supporting studies and to ignore studies that have not found an association of PM2.5 with mortality.

These points have been presented in a thoughtful and temperate analysis by Stanley Young and Jesse Xia of the National Institute for Statistical Sciences.

It should also be mentioned that the prevailing view on the health effects of air pollution is set by a small group of researchers who both carried out the studies used by the EPA as the basis for regulation and are also involved in the implementation of EPA policy, giving the appearance of a closed loop.

Others have pointed out that using particle size as criterion for health effects is a crude approach, reflecting our lack of understanding of the effects of specific pollutants.

Finally, rather than focusing narrowly on the effects of air pollution, one has to consider other influences on health. It may be that alternative actions such as reducing smoking rates, improving access to and affordability of fresh produce, reducing obesity, and boosting employment may do more to improve health than making further reductions in PM2.5.

Beyond these issues, there are other relevant considerations. The studies in question are observational studies and such studies have well-known limitations. Everyone agrees that these studies alone cannot establish causality; however, once results get highlighted in influential papers in prestigious journals, this inconvenient caveat is lost sight of and researchers and regulators proceed to act as if the studies demonstrate causality.

Summary

For thirty years I have been involved in primary research on the causes of cancer and have published extensively on a wide range of environmental and lifestyle exposures thought to contribute to the risk of specific cancers. Knowledge derived from epidemiology holds tremendous potential for reducing the toll of cancer and other chronic diseases.

At the same time, there is considerable confusion about what factors actually have an important impact on health. Too often,hypothetical risks become the focus of attention in the media and regulatory agencies and get blown out of proportion, causing needless anxiety and distracting people from well-established and important factors that they can actually do something to modify.

We are faced with enormous societal issues regarding health, health care costs, energy, and the environment. But, all too often, certain aspects of these issues get focused on, and other crucial aspects get ignored. Examples of high-profile issues that are highly contested and on which the relevant information can be skewed are: the future of nuclearpower (following the Fukushima incident in Japan),hydraulic fracturingto exploit natural gas deposits, and the health effects of extremely low-level exposures to chemicals such as bisphenol-A(BPA),phthalates, and various pesticides.

In a recent book and articles, I have attempted to demonstrate how crucial it is toput aside political ideology and to critically assess all of the relevant scientific evidence to arrive at a dispassionate assessment of what is firmly known on a specific topic and what uncertainties remain. Such assessment is essential to the process of formulating sound policy and putting specific issues in perspective.

I address current issues of health risks and risk perception in my regular Forbes column:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/

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insert 2x

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Senior Epidemiologist

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

July 2006 – Present (8 years 1 month)Bronx, NY

Stony Brook UniversityAssociate Professor

Stony Brook University

November 1996 – January 2001 (4 years 3 months)Stony Brook, New York

Albert Einstein College of MedicineAssociate Professor

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

October 1992 – October 1996 (4 years 1 month)Bronx, NY

Senior Epidemiologist

American Health Foundation

June 1982 – October 1992 (10 years 5 months)New York City

Languages

French

Full professional proficiency

Russian

Professional working proficiency

Japanese

Limited working proficiency

Skills & Endorsements

Top Skills

17Epidemiology

13Cancer

9Literature Reviews

9Health Research

6Books

6International Health

5Cancer Research

5Community Health

4Medical Research

4Medical Writing

Geoffrey also knows about...

4Research

4Preventive Medicine

3Environmental Health

3Public Health

3Evidence-based Medicine

3Pharmacoepidemiology

2Biostatistics

2Statistics

2Research Design

2Reproductive Health

1SAS

1Infectious Diseases

1Global Health

1Oncology

1Molecular Biology

See 22+

Publications

Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology(Link)

Columbia University Press

June 2008

The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking in our everyday lives, but many of these hazards turn out to have been greatly overblown. According to author and epidemiologist Geoffrey C. Kabat, this hyping of low-level environmental hazards leads to needless anxiety and confusion on the part of the public concerning which exposures have important effects on health and which...more

Start worrrying -- details to follow(Link)

Columbia University Press blog

January 2011

Hyping health risks in Brazil(Link)

Columbia University Press blog

May 2010

Defending the achievements, if not the style, of the anti-smoking movement.(Link)

In: R. Veras (ed.) Myths and Misconceptions about Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Dissenting Views. Rio de Janeiro: UnATI, 2010, pp. 29-35.

2010

Misdiagnosing cell threat(Link)

The Daily

June 2011

scientific publications (130)(Link)

Behind the World Health Organization's Pronouncement on Cell Phones(Link)

Forbes

August 23, 2011

Does coffee drinking really protect against devastating diseases?(Link)

Forbes

December 6, 2011

Why UCLA's firing of a lone dissenting voice should worry us(Link)

National Association of Scholars

December 5, 2011

The Bad News about the Good News about Chocolate(Link)

Forbes

April 1, 2012

How Activism Distorts the Assessment of Health Risks(Link)

Forbes

November 20, 2012

Natural does not mean safe(Link)

Slate

November 26, 2012

How Useful Is Body Mass Index In Predicting Long-Term Health?(Link)

Forbes

January 6, 2013

Making Room for the Unseen in Tackling Complex Problems(Link)

Forbes

January 17, 2013

What Caused A Billion Dollar Federal Study Of Child Health To Implode?(Link)

Forbes

February 4, 2013

After 40 Years Of Research, What Do We Know About Preventing Breast Cancer?(Link)

Forbes

February 24, 2013

Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer? The Diehards Cling Desperately To Opinion(Link)

Forbes

March 5, 2013

Finer Grained Data Transform Our Understanding of the Holocaust(Link)

Forbes

March 13, 2013

Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer? The Conspiracy Theorists Say Yes(Link)

Forbes

March 10, 2013

To Combat some Big Diseases We Should Focus on the Basics(Link)

Forbes

March 27, 2013

Should the FCC Re-examine Cell Phone Radiation?(Link)

Forbes

April 4, 2013

Modish, anti-scientific thinking will not advance breast cancer prevention(Link)

Forbes

April 23, 2013

Can Setting a Deadline Put an End to Breast Cancer?(Link)

Forbes

April 29, 2013

New Research Holds Promise for the Most Deadly Form of Cancer(Link)

Forbes

May 2, 2013

Why Do Some People Live to 100 Years?(Link)

Forbes

May 29, 2013

HPV Vaccination in India: An Historic Opportunity...and A Daunting Challenge(Link)

Forbes

June 28, 2013

Why Labeling Obesity As a Disease is a Big Mistake(Link)

Forbes

July 9, 2013

Why Labeling Obesity As a Disease is a Big Mistake, part 2(Link)

Forbes

July 15, 2013

How Abysmal Scientific Research Is Used To Scare America's Parents(Link)

Forbes

August 20, 2013

Yet Another Large Study Discredits the Link Between Cell Phones and Brain Cancer(Link)

Forbes

September 4, 2013

What is Really at Stake in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Supoena of EPA Data (Link)

Forbes ESTrOM

September 23, 2013

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Bans Dietary Supplements from Its Pharmacy(Link)

Forbes

October 18, 2013

Over-Reaching California EPA Regulators Promoted A False Breast Cancer Link(Link)

Forbes

October 25, 2013

Maintaining A Healthy Body Weight Is Key To A Healthy Body(Link)

Forbes

November 19, 2013

Does Peanut Consumption Lead to Decreased Mortality?(Link)

Forbes

November 24, 2013

Six Solid Ways to Reduce Your Cancer Risk -- and That of Your Children(Link)

Forbes

December 6, 2013

The Passive Smoking Issue Is A Rorschach Test For The Ability To Think Scientifically(Link)

Forbes

December 21, 2013

Is the Obesity Epidemic Reversible, or Does Obesity Represent a New Stage of Human Evolution?(Link)

Forbes

January 6, 2014

Weight Gain Starting in Adolescence is Linked to Greater Mortality Later in Life(Link)

Forbes

January 17, 2014

There Is An Urgent Need To Address The "Terrible Situation Of Chronic Disease In Developing Countries"(Link)

Forbes

February 2, 2014

Sochi and Syria: How Can We Watch The Olympics Knowing What is Going on a Few Hundred Miles Away in Syria?(Link)

Forbes

February 19, 2014

How Credible Is CDC's 43 Percent Decline In Obesity In Young Children?(Link)

Forbes

February 27, 2014

The Disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 Represents An Affront To Our Most Basic Assumptions About Reality(Link)

Forbes

March 16, 2014

A New Report Documents How Smoking and its Consequences Are Increasingly Confined to the Poor -- A Trend Which Was Pointed Out Forty Years Ago!(Link)

Forbes

March 30, 2014

We Worry About Trace Amounts Of BPA While Playing Russian Roulette With Dietary Supplements

http://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2014/04/11/we-worry-about-trace-amounts-of-bpa-while-playing-russian-roulette-with-dietary-supplements/

April 11, 2014

Top Scientists Call For Reform Of "Unsustainable" Biomedical Research Enterprise(Link)

Forbes

May 5, 2014

Should Mammography Be Abolished?(Link)

Forbes

May 24, 2014

Much Coventional Wisdom about the Causes of the Obesity Epidemic May be Wrong(Link)

Forbes

June 2, 2014

We Are Nowhere Near Understanding the Causes of Obesity and How to Prevent it(Link)

Forbes

June 9, 2014

Do We Really Have to Worry about Shower Curtains Causing Weight Gain?(Link)

Forbes

June 18, 2014

The New York Times Revisits The "Debate" Over Electromagnetic Fields, Reviving Baseless Fears, While Ignoring What Has Been Learned(Link)

Forbes

July 8, 2014

Education

Columbia University School of Public Health

M.S., Epidemiology

1982 – 1984

Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures/Comparative Literature

1971 – 1976

Leningrad State University

Russian literature - dissertation research

1971 – 1972

Stanford University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Slavic Languages and Literatures/Comparative Literature

1967 – 1968

Haverford College

B.S., Classics, French

1963 – 1967

forbes opinion

OPINION 7/22/2013 @ 8:00AM 5,465 views

The Real Motivation Behind Park And Beach Smoking Bans

Campaigns to restrict smoking in public places first emerged in the 1970s and have continued to expand apace over the past 3 decades. Over this time period there has been a dramatic change in the landscape – many states and municipalities now have statutes prohibiting smoking in public buildings, bars and restaurants, schools, hospitals, and other venues.

These laws and statutes were largely justified by reference to the 1993 EPA report that classified secondhand tobacco smoke as a Class A (human) carcinogen. Although that report stuck many scientists as putting activism above a careful reading of the evidence, there is no question that it achieved the intended aim of providing an official sanction – a founding text — for statutes protecting nonsmokers from the allegedly lethal effects of breathing other people’s tobacco smoke.....

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