sense about science

=<div>bogus, left-rt flip</div><div>see butterworth</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html">http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>bpa fights back</div><div>by Meg Kissinger and Susanne Rust of the Journal Sentinel</div><div>
</div><div><div class="date" style="top: inherit; left: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative !important; width: auto !important; height: auto !important;">Published on: 8/22/2009</div><div class="body" style="top: inherit; left: inherit; position: relative !important; width: auto !important; height: auto !important;">Bill Carteaux paced the stage with the intensity of a general about to send troops into bloody battle.He is at war against mounting momentum to ban bisphenol A, a key ingredient in hard, clear plastic products. Studies have linked BPA to breast cancer, testicular cancer, reproductive deformities and neurological defects.Carteaux, president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, represents manufacturers of thousands of products made with BPA. Sales of that chemical now top $6 billion a year.For decades, the chemical industry has been able to control the debate on whether BPA is harmful to human health. Now the Food and Drug Administration, which had relied on industry-financed studies to declare the chemical safe, is reconsidering its determination. The decision is expected by Nov. 30."We are under attack from all fronts," Carteaux told the audience at the group's annual meeting in June.And with increasing urgency, the industry is pushing back - hard.The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics - and people - the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation. This time, the industry's arsenal includes state-of-the-art technology. Their modern-day Trojan horses: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.A four-month investigation by the Journal Sentinel reveals a highly calibrated campaign by plastics makers to fight federal regulation of BPA, downplay its risks and discredit anyone who characterizes the chemical as a health threat. The newspaper examined thousands of pages of Internal Revenue Service reports, disclosure forms and e-mails between government scientists and lobbyists as well as the industry's own public relations materials.The documents offer a rare glimpse at the hardball politics of chemical regulation, where judgments about safety are made not necessarily on the merits of science but because of the clout of lobbyists working the system.In May, the Journal Sentinel reported e-mails obtained from the FDA showed how federal regulators deferred in recent years to chemical industry lobbyists, allowing them effectively to write public policy on the chemical's safety.The newly discovered documents show agency scientists have relied on chemical industry lobbyists to help draft public safety standards on BPA for much longer, more than a decade.Details of meetings between federal regulators and chemical industry lobbyists are found in the archives of the Tobacco Institute, the lobby group of the tobacco industry. A court settlement in 1998 disbanded the institute and opened the records to the public.Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government's assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.The Tobacco Institute documents show administrators from the FDA routinely turned to chemical industry scientists to establish the government's safety level for BPA. Government scientists relied on test results performed by industry scientists without independent confirmation.A 1997 briefing by lawyers for plastics industry executives confirms how government regulators looked to industry scientists to determine how much BPA was safe in food packing. After discussions with government scientists on their conclusions, Jerome Heckman of the Washington, D.C., law firm Keller and Heckman wrote: "We believe FDA relied heavily on original data supplied by (the association)."<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'Tipping point'</h3>Carteaux, the industry official who spoke at the June convention, declined to be interviewed. But the urgency of his message is clear in the videotape of his presentation to association members."We are at the tipping point," Carteaux said. "Legislation and regulation threaten to fundamentally change our business model."At another point, he noted: "We can't continue to fight back just at the reactive stage when things are emotionally charged. We have to take the offensive and react quicker."New public relations materials show how the chemical industry is getting more aggressive about protecting its image as worries about chemicals in plastics mount - often in new and subtle ways.Chemical makers and plastics industry executives are putting up their own versions of news clips on social media outlets such as YouTube, MySpace, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A">Wikipedia</a>, Twitter and blogs. Often, they are disguised as neutral, unbiased information and rarely reveal the source.So what might look to consumers researching BPA on the Internet as independent information are often stories written by chemical industry public relations writers.Allegiances are not always explained. The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth, editor of Statistical Assessment Service, also known as STATS. He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry.Butterworth explained his stealth public relations campaign in a 2006 article in Chemical Week magazine."Companies need to develop a public information policy that is proactive in educating the public and tackling the claims of activist groups in real time," Butterworth said. "Most of the companies are like a deer in the headlights, and traditional PR is useless in dealing with these problems."In June, Butterworth authored a 27,000-word review of the media's coverage of BPA that is featured on plastics industry Web sites.STATS claims to be independent and nonpartisan. But a review of its financial reports shows it is a branch of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. That group was paid by the tobacco industry to monitor news stories about the dangers of tobacco.Media managers for the plastics industry also monitor the Internet for negative stories about chemicals, including BPA. They post their own version of the stories, significantly downplaying any potential danger and dismissing concerns about BPA safety as "e-rumors."For instance, in April 2008, after Canada announced it was declaring BPA a toxin and moving to ban it from baby bottles, chemical makers launched their own Web site, www.factsonplastic.com. It features nine videos, all posted on YouTube and intended to debunk worries about BPA.One video shows Liz Weiss, a registered dietitian, discussing how to microwave with plastic."If it says 'microwave safe' or 'microwavable,' feel confident that you can use that plastic wrap in the microwave," she says.The Journal Sentinel reported last year that 10 products labeled "microwave safe" or marketed for children's use actually leached the chemical when heated. The label "microwave safe" is not a government designation or a guarantee the product does not contain BPA.In the video, Weiss smiles into the camera and says of plastic containers: "You can make beautiful vegetables, high in nutrition."What's more, her recipes are featured on a Web site, <a target="blank" href="http://plasticsinfo.org/">plasticsinfo.org</a>, sponsored by the American Chemistry Council.In another video, Sharon Kneiss, vice president of the organization's plastics division, criticizes a report that had aired on NBC-TV's "Today" show, advising parents to discontinue using certain plastic food containers."That report clearly confused and frightened the public, and they hurt the integrity of the products," she says.Kneiss says the FDA declared the chemical to be safe for all use - but does not mention that this determination is under review or that another government group, the National Toxicology Program, found some concern for infants and fetuses exposed to BPA."Parents should be confident in that affirmation and that we are safely using these products," Kneiss says.Industry image makers also plan to link to search engines such as Google and Yahoo, so their items will pop up when readers are searching the Internet for information about BPA, public relations materials show.The group also plans to launch a Web site aimed at helping consumers, particularly young shoppers, find information about plastic products."It is a targeted sharpshooter approach as opposed to spray and pay," Tracy Cullen, senior vice president of marketing and communications for the plastics association, told Plastics News Reports, a trade publication.<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$10 million campaign</h3>Carteaux's group - the Society of the Plastics Industry - has launched a $10 million campaign to sell the benefits of plastic to people ages 18 to 28 who are the likeliest to be buying baby products in the next decade. The association has committed $400,000 to the effort and hopes to raise the rest in the next few years.This is running in conjunction with efforts by the group's sister organization, the American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical makers that supply the raw materials.<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/46630742.html">Notes</a> obtained by the Journal Sentinel of a meeting last May by food packaging association executives and chemical industry lobbyists showed how desperately they are trying to downplay concerns about BPA's safety.The newspaper reported they talked about how to find "the holy grail" - a pregnant woman to serve as spokeswoman for the industry. The plan called for the woman to talk about the benefits of BPA, presumably to undermine concerns about the chemical's damaging effects on fetuses and infants.Industry executives also discussed scare tactics that they might use to discourage government bans of BPA, such as spreading word of infant formula shortages if the chemical were outlawed in food packaging.That report led to an ongoing congressional investigation.In that meeting, lobbyists talked about the importance of "befriending people who are able to manipulate the legislative process."The Journal Sentinel also has found numerous examples of the plastics industry lobby exaggerating claims of BPA's safety and using outdated studies to support their position.For instance, the industry's Web site - www.bisphenol-a.org - claims that "potential human exposure to BPA from polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resin food contact applications is minimal and poses no known risk to human health." That statement is based on a 1983 assessment.The Web site, which is not labeled as being owned and operated by the chemical lobby group, makes no mention of hundreds of studies conducted since 1983 that linked the chemical to harm. In 2007, the Journal Sentinel reviewed 258 scientific studies of BPA and found that the overwhelming majority determined the chemical is harmful.The chemical industry also typically overstates safety assessments in statements it sends out.In early July, industry association lobbyists issued a press release about studies done by the Canadian government claiming that they proved BPA to be safe."The ACC applauds new data from Health Canada confirming the safety of BPA in bottled water, baby food and infant formula," said Steven Hentges, chief lobbyist for the American Chemical Council.But Hentges failed to distinguish between these findings and earlier studies that found the concern about BPA is in polycarbonate bottles and in liquid formula stored in cans lined with BPA."Those are two very different things," said Philippe Laroche, media relations officer for Health Canada. This study was "not related to polycarbonate, for which we have a proposed ban," he said.David Rosner, professor of public health and history at Columbia University, watched Carteaux's 52-minute June speech and saw striking similarities between the plastics and tobacco industries. Rosner is the author of several books on industry efforts to control government regulation, including "Deceit and Denial: the History of Industrial Pollution.""If I hadn't studied how this industry has operated in the past, I would say I was shocked," Rosner said. "But this attempt to deflect and distort public opinion is par for the course. They will ultimately do virtually anything to protect their product, even attack the messengers."He added: "We're watching a propaganda campaign in the making."</div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/">https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/</a><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/">https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/</a></div><div>
</div><div>guk link</div><div>
</div><div>at <span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white" px="px" rgb="rgb" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase">A TIME when public mistrust of science runs high, and non-experts are hard-pressed to separate fact from industry-sponsored spin, Sense About Science, a charity based in London with an affiliate in New York, presents itself as a trustworthy arbiter. The organization purports to help the misinformed public sift through alarmist claims about public health and the environment by <a href="http://archive.senseaboutscience.org/pages/get-scientific-advice.html" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line">directing journalists</a>, policymakers, and others to vetted sources who can explain the evidence behind debates about controversial products like <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/news.php/364/whats-the-evidence-for-banning-electronic-cigarettes" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line">e-cigarettes</a> and flame retardants.</div><div>
</div><div><div data-reactid="212" style="box-sizing: border-box;">One reason the public is so confused, suggested Tracey Brown, the group’s director, in a recent Guardian op-ed,[guk] is that the media feeds alarmism by focusing on who sponsors scientific studies, rather than asking more important questions about whether the research is sound. Even when there is no evidence of bias, Brown contended, journalists attack industry-funded research, running exposés on subjects such as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35406301" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">fracking</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581387/Scientists-hidden-links-GM-food-giants-Disturbing-truth-official-report-said-UK-forge-Frankenfoods.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">genetically modified plants</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31412551" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sugar</a>. Brown lamented that what she called “the ‘who funded it?’ question” is too often asked by “people with axes to grind.”Brown’s downplaying of concerns about such research invites skepticism. Since the mid-1990s, numerous studies have shown that industry-funded research tends to favor its sponsors’ products. This <a href="http://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1262&context=jlp" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">effect</a> has been documented in research financed by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280330/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">chemical</a>, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001716" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">pharmaceutical</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26465782" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">surgical</a>, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001578" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">food</a>, <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=187551" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">tobacco</a>, and, we have learned most recently, <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sugar</a> companies. In the 1960s, the sugar industry secretly paid scientists to minimize the role sugar plays in causing heart disease and blame saturated fat instead, according to a study published in the September issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. For decades, industry-funded research helped tobacco companies block regulations by undermining evidence that cigarettes kill. Precisely because of the very real risk of bias, <a href="http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/wp-content/uploads/retreat_paper_2005-02.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">prestigious scientific journals</a> have long required researchers to disclose their sources of support. Journalists in pursuit of transparency have good reason to ask, “Who funded it?”Sense About Science claims to champion transparency. The organization has campaigned to see the evidence behind policy decisions and asked for pharmaceutical companies to release all the results of clinical trials, not just the positive ones. Nearly 700 organizations have signed on to the clinical trials initiative since it began last year. These are salutary efforts, and Brown points out that with the exception of one program funded by publishers, none of the group’s projects are underwritten by companies. But this sidesteps a larger issue.Sense About Science does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination. And the group is known to take positions that buck scientific consensus or dismiss emerging evidence of harm. When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well. iN 2002, DICK TAVERNE, an English politician and business consultant, founded Sense About Science “to expose bogus science,” he explains in his memoir, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ghSuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=%22dick+taverne%22+AND+%22bogus+science%22&source=bl&ots=OZGR2OtqVb&sig=xeCz8LvmrEYtwmqnk2HrOD0_15o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQkNHXx93PAhUFwVQKHQkxBIcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22dick%20taverne%22%20AND%20%22bogus%20science%22&f=false" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Against the Tide</a>.” Through his consulting work, Taverne had cultivated relationships with energy, communications, food, and pharmaceutical companies. Sense About Science’s early sponsors included some of Taverne’s former clients and companies in which he owned stock.</div><div data-reactid="215" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Taverne must have known the power of media narratives about science firsthand, because he had experience with the tobacco industry, which labored mightily to change the conversation about its product in the face of evidence that cigarettes were lethal. According to internal documents released in litigation by cigarette manufacturers, Taverne’s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">improve relations with its investors</a> and <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=njpd0116" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">beat European regulations on cigarettes</a> in the 1990s. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192?" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">undated memo</a>, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that “the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne,” because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and “would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds.” During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the British branch of the powerhouse public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a “sound science” group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was a pitch Burson-Marsteller made to Philip Morris in a <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=ygjm0128" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">1994 memorandum</a>.It’s not hard to identify traces of this approach in Taverne’s later work. Writing in his 2005 book, “<a href="http://emilkirkegaard.dk/da/wp-content/uploads/0192804855.Oxford.University.Press.USA.The.March.of.Unreason.Science.Democracy.and.the.New.Fundamentalism.May.2005.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The March of Unreason</a>,” Taverne complained that “eco-fundamentalists” and fearmongers had fomented a backlash against science and technology, which had in turn produced a “multiplication of health and safety regulations.” That year British Petroleum donated 15,000 pounds to Sense About Science, and Taverne <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/vo050223/text/50223-24.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">argued in the House of Lords</a> that as much as 80 percent of global warming might be attributable to solar activity, even though that theory had been <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4361&method=full" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">discredited</a> two years earlier. Taverne, who stepped down as chairman of Sense About Science in 2012, did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.Sense About Science established an American affiliate in 2014, under the direction of a Brooklyn-based journalist named Trevor Butterworth. In financial documents, Sense About Science claims Sense About Science USA as a sister organization “with close ties and similar aims.” <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/about/corporate-responsibility/sense-about-science" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">High-profile scientific publishers</a>, as well as such reputable institutions as the <a href="http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/reporting/math-journalist-numbers-statistics-research?utm_campaign=9f242baf8c-2015_Sept_1_A_B_split3_24_2015&utm_term=0_12d86b1d6a-9f242baf8c-79990993&utm_content=buffer3951f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy</a> and the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/statistical_advisory_board.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Columbia Journalism Review</a>, have promoted Butterworth’s services to scientists and journalists.From 2003 to 2014, Butterworth contributed to the website of an organization called STATS, a nonprofit that promoted statistical literacy. STATS had its own connections to the tobacco industry, in this case through founder Robert Lichter, a conservative political scientist and now a communications professor at George Mason University. Lichter also co-founded and continues to run the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which Philip Morris hired in 1994 to survey news reports about tobacco as part of its strategy, <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">outlined in a memo from March of that year</a>, to counter “personal and public bias” in stories about cigarettes’ health risks.</div><div class="img-wrap align-right width-fixed" data-reactid="216" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em -184.438px 1em 1.5em; line-height: 1; max-width: 50%; width: 227px; float: right;"><div data-reactid="217" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBetaMono-Regular_web, Consolas, " andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline">[pix “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” by Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, S. Fred Singer. <p class="caption source" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBetaMono-Regular_web, Consolas, " andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline">Photo: Heartland Institute</div></div><div data-reactid="218" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lichter, like Sense About Science’s Tracey Brown, has argued that industry money doesn’t necessarily taint the science it supports. In 2003, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20031202184233/http:/www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/pdfs/pdf_politics_and_science_rep.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">congressional report charged</a> the George W. Bush administration with stacking a government committee on childhood lead poisoning with industry scientists. Lichter appeared as an analyst on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.htmlhttp:/www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">CNN and said</a>, “Studies have found that scientists who have consulted for industry do not differ in their assessment of risks, of health risks, from scientists who have not consulted for industry.” Lichter did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment or citations to these studies.Before STATS was dissolved in 2014, and its web site adopted by Sense About Science USA, it received regular grants from free-market sources. Between 1998 and 2014, STATS received $4.5 million, 81 percent of its donations, from the Searle Freedom Trust, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Donors Trust (a fund largely sustained by Charles Koch), and other right-wing foundations. Searle, which <a href="http://www.searlefreedomtrust.org/daniel-c-searle-1926-2007/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">describes its mission</a> as promoting “economic liberties,” gave STATS $959,000 between 2010 and 2014. Anti-regulatory foundations, including these, spent over half a billion dollars between 2003 and 2010 to “manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change,” according to a 2013 study by Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle.</div><div class="img-wrap align-center width-fixed" data-reactid="219" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px 2.25em; line-height: 1; max-width: none; width: 1000px;"><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">wITH THESE ROOTS, Sense About Science should not surprise anyone when it promotes anti-regulatory voices on issues like asbestos. In a 2006 brochure called “Science for Celebrities” and purporting to correct misperceptions about synthetic chemicals, Sense About Science offers John Hoskins, a toxicologist formerly of the <a href="http://www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InterestGroups/Toxicology/Committee.asp" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit</a> at the University of Leicester. Under the rubric “Toxic effects depend on dose,” Hoskins reassures us: “Away from the high doses of occupational exposure a whole host of unwanted chemicals finds their way into our bodies. Most leave quickly but some stay: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120917080945/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/47/ScienceForCelebrities.pdf" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">asbestos and silica in our lungs</a>, dioxins in our blood. Do they matter? No!”</div></div><div data-reactid="221" style="box-sizing: border-box;">More than two decades ago, the <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airtoxics/asbes/biddocs/EPA-600-8-84-003F_June%201986_Health%20Assessment.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a> and the <a href="http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol1-42/mono14.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> declared asbestos a proven human carcinogen. Since then, as countries continue to mine asbestos, industry groups have argued that certain varieties, including chrysotile and crocidolite, are not so toxic. In response, several groups, including the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Collegium Ramazzini</a>, an international body of occupational and environmental health experts, have issued consensus statements warning that no form of asbestos is safe at any dose. In calling for a universal ban on all forms of asbestos in 2010, the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Collegium Ramazzini</a> observed that the asbestos industry’s attacks on evidence that “irrefutably” links its product to cancer “closely resemble those used by the tobacco industry.”Brown maintains that Sense About Science has not disagreed with the scientific consensus on asbestos, and she notes that dose and type of exposure are the issue. But when I asked Hoskins why his position differed from the scientific consensus, he shrugged over email, “Once upon a time the consensus was that the earth is flat.” Hoskins further replied, “Unfortunately, to say that within a population low-level exposure of many chemicals must be dangerous is not borne out by reality, much to the chagrin of those who live in the fantasy world of ‘chemical-free.’ ”Hoskins’s résumé states that he has represented the Chrysotile Institute in “discussion with the governments of several countries.” But he did not disclose this relationship to the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health journal when he co-authored two scientific papers disputing claims that <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/10125" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">chrysotile</a> or <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11167" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">crocidolite</a> caused a rare cancer in exposed populations. When his industry ties came to light, the journal issued errata for <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11450/10606" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">both</a> <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11452/10607" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">papers</a> to disclose this competing interest. (Hoskins denies any conflict of interest, insisting that his role in authoring the papers was confined to providing information the other authors requested. Yet all but one of the other authors had also failed to disclose their asbestos interests, which now appear in the errata.)Soon after the first paper appeared, eight public health researchers wrote a letter to the editors of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">expressing outrage</a> that the journal would publish a paper with “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">gross mistakes</a>” and “no scientific content.” A group that included many of the letter’s signatories asked the journal to consider retracting the second paper, citing “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11590/10868" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">seriously misleading information</a>.” But the journal’s editors declined to retract the papers, which remain in the technical literature, casting doubt on the scientific consensus <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.10300/epdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">that all forms of asbestos</a> are hazardous to human health.</div><div data-reactid="224" style="box-sizing: border-box;">iT’S HARD TO make a case for the safety of a substance like asbestos, which most people know causes cancer. Other commercial products are easier to defend, not because they are less hazardous, but because consumers are not as familiar with the evidence questioning their safety and utility. Scientists have known since 1997 that flame retardants, for example, can cause cancer. These brominated and chlorinated chemicals are used in a wide range of consumer products, including nursing pads and car seats. For more than three decades, studies in animals and humans have linked them to cancer, developmental delays, and other serious health problems. By 2010, the evidence was so persuasive that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002201/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">nearly 150 scientists from 22 countries</a> signed a statement warning that flame retardants “are a concern for persistence, bioaccumulation, long-range transport, and toxicity.” Flame retardants’ fire safety benefit not only remains unproven, the scientists asserted, but the chemicals form highly toxic byproducts when burned.Sense About Science has long relied on dubious numbers to insist on the efficacy of these chemicals.  In 2006 it published a pamphlet on “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120325143525/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">misconceptions about chemicals</a>” in which it claimed that British laws requiring flame retardants in furniture had <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150413142432/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reduced fire deaths by 20 percent, citing</a> a 2000 European Commission report called “Flame Retardants.” A European Commission press officer told me she knows of no such report. “The reference to the 20 percent reduction in fire deaths is repeatedly quoted in papers and publications from flame retardant industries and associations, and they always refer to ‘Flame Retardants, DG Environment Video 2000,’ which we cannot find.” On the contrary, she told me, it is simply “not possible to correlate fire deaths to non-flammability requirements.”Who did make the claim? Flame retardant industry trade groups, including the <a href="http://slidegur.com/doc/1163534/efra-european-flame-retardant-association" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">European Flame Retardant Association</a> and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150501142126/http:/www.bsef.com/uploads/Documents/documents/10%20facts%20about%20flame%20retardants.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Bromine Science and Environmental Forum</a>, run by Philip Morris’s longtime PR firm Burson-Marsteller. The U.S.-based <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091203075408/http:/www.cffsi.org/news.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Citizens for Fire Safety</a> also repeated the claim until it disbanded, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/09/11749/citizens-fire-safety-smoked-out-front-group-folds-after-expos%C3%A9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">following revelations</a> in 2012 that leading flame retardant producers ran the organization, not the grassroots group of “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091203075348/http:/www.cffsi.org/about.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">staff and volunteers committed to national fire safety</a>” its literature asserted.The same year, Sense About Science again called on John Hoskins, identified as an independent toxicologist, this time to fact-check a <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es303471d" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">study</a> that found potentially carcinogenic flame retardants in sofas. In his response, Hoskins wrote: “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150928075112/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/resources.php/107/do-flame-retardants-in-sofas-cause-cancer" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The bottom line</a> is that danger of fire is many, many times greater than any imagined danger from chemicals used to prevent it.”“Everything I wrote about flame retardants was taken from published works,” Hoskins told me. “Reviewers at the time found nothing to criticize and I have had no comment from the thousands of people who must have read the pieces.”Sense About Science reprinted its guide on chemicals in 2014. “The trade-off between fire risk and toxicology is changing, and we represented that newer precautionary thinking in our most recent publications,” Brown, the group’s director, told The Intercept in an email. The new guide acknowledged “allegations of side effects” from flame retardants, including persistence in the environment and toxicity to humans and animals. But it also retained the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160729205537/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/154/MakingSenseofChemicalStories2.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">unsupported claim</a> that regulations requiring the chemicals saved lives. The guide even retained the text that countered concerns about traces of flame retardants found in children’s bodies by asserting that because the chemicals protected children from death or injury from fire, “To fail to expose them to such chemicals could be regarded as negligent.”<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653513017293" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Scientists who reviewed human studies</a> had come to a different conclusion the year before. They warned that although such links were impossible to prove conclusively, the evidence suggested that children’s exposure to flame retardants could have serious health consequences, including neurobehavioral and developmental problems. The scientists called for regulatory oversight.</div><div data-reactid="227" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
of ALL THE controversial chemicals in the public eye, the one Trevor Butterworth, Sense About Science USA’s director, has most fervently defended is bisphenol A, a <a href="https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">compound used to make plastics</a>. BPA is found in hard plastics, the lining of canned drinks and foods, thermal receipts, and other consumer and industrial products, including <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0131-2" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">cigarette filters</a>. Manufacturers <a href="https://mcgroup.co.uk/news/20131108/bpa-production-grew-372000-tonnes.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">produce billions of pounds</a> of BPA each year. Its market value is projected to <a href="http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/12/682387/10107790/en/Global-Bisphenol-A-BPA-Market-Demand-Is-Expected-To-Grow-At-CAGR-of-4-7-From-2014-To-2020-New-Report-By-Grand-View-Research-Inc.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reach $20 billion by 2020</a>. And numerous studies and scientific <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726844/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">consensus statements</a> have linked BPA, which can interfere with hormone signaling, to developmental and reproductive disorders.Leading reproductive biologists released a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2967230/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">consensus statement</a> in 2007 warning that “the wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans.”Two years later, while working for STATS, Butterworth published a 27,000-word <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/docs/pdf/00047081.PDF" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">investigation</a> sharply questioning the validity of the scientific studies and news reports about BPA’s health effects. Butterworth’s central claim was that a handful of scientists, journalists, and environmental activist groups had ignored good science in a crusade to paint BPA as “the biological equivalent of global warming.” He singled out a <a href="http://cironline.org/person/susanne-rust" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">widely acclaimed</a> <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/40037607.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">special report</a> by Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger called “<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.htmlhttp:/www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Chemical Fallout</a>.” These reporters, he claimed, relied on flawed studies by independent researchers and unfairly dismissed the industry-funded studies that found no harm. But the independent studies were not, in fact, flawed. Regulators just <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19337501" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">didn’t consider them useful</a>, because, like many such academic studies, they didn’t measure toxicity but tested hypotheses about how BPA could alter living systems.<a href="http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/herMetabolism.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">BPA trade groups</a> have long insisted that the substance is metabolized too quickly to cause harm. Butterworth cites a 2009 <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19440505" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study</a> that measured BPA concentrations in newborns to make the same case. The study, he argues, “provides important evidence that infants — even those born prematurely — are able to detoxify BPA in the same way as adults.”The CDC study he cited was designed to gauge exposure, not metabolism. BPA has been detected in the urine of nearly every American tested. Premature babies’ fragile systems make them particularly vulnerable to environmental contaminants. The researchers suspected that the use of plastic medical devices in neonatal intensive care units might expose premature infants to higher than average levels of BPA. And that’s exactly what they found: Average BPA concentrations in hospitalized premature babies were about 10 times higher than those measured in adults. The authors noted that although premature babies appear to have some ability to metabolize BPA, their detoxification pathways “are not expected to be functional at adult rates until months after birth.”Butterworth ended his critique of what he called “the BPA is dangerous thesis” by suggesting that banning the chemical could result in greater harm: “What if some parents who turned to glass bottles for fear of … ‘leaching’ BPA drop and break them, causing injury to their babies?”Butterworth’s arguments have reverberated across an echo chamber of <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2014/04/anti-bpa-crusaders-baseless-fearmongering/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">free-market organizations</a>, including <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yxhb0089" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Philip Morris</a>’s <a href="http://www.masstortdefense.com/2009/08/articles/bpa-update/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">product defense law firm</a>, <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/the-troubling-case-of-bisphenol-a/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch-funded think tanks</a>, chemical and <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/thirdparty.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">food-packaging</a> industry <a href="http://www.thermalpaperfacts.org/archives/158" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">trade groups</a> in <a href="http://www.bisphenol-a-europe.org/index.php?mact=Mediaroom,cntnt01,default,0&cntnt01language=en_GB&cntnt01orderby=published_on%20DESC&cntnt01limit=10&cntnt01type=article&cntnt01page=5&cntnt01returnid=44" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Europe</a> and <a href="http://www.canmaker.com/online/who-will-watch-the-watchdogs/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">the U.S.</a>, and an ostensibly neutral <a href="http://www.ehrf.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/UpdateBisphenolA_5_23_11.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">environmental health research foundation</a> run by a <a href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/profiles/profiles_february_2009_evniron_pa.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">chemical industry PR firm</a>.Reached by email for comment, Butterworth did not account for his questionable characterization of the CDC study. He said that his critique relied on the work of scientists from regulatory agencies involved in risk assessment, and that these scientists had criticized smaller studies that claimed adverse effects. He maintained that studies assessing the effects of low doses of BPA are inconsistent and unlikely to capture significant results because of methodological and statistical problems.The year after Butterworth’s 2009 investigation, the anti-regulatory Donors Trust awarded STATS $86,000 for its “research efforts,” and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which belongs to the BPA Joint Trade Association, gave Lichter’s Center for Media and Public Affairs $10,000 for “research support.” Butterworth continued to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/04/09/bpa-the-scientists-the-scare-the-100-million-dollar-surge/#66f8f69463c3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">defend BPA in news outlets</a> and in 2013 made his case on a blog <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/is-bpa-safe-why-some-are-still-confused-despite-evidence" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">for Coca-Cola</a>, another BPA Joint Trade Association member.That year Coca-Cola <a href="http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/investments-in-health-and-wellbeing/list-of-organisations" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">gave more than $30,000</a> to Butterworth’s future partner, Sense About Science, which hosted a BPA forum the next year. (Since then, Sense About Science has not received corporate donations, which “represented less than 3 percent of our income,” Brown wrote in an email.) In the forum, a <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/live-plastic-packaging-qa.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Q&A on</a> social media, Sense About Science put forward a representative of the British Plastics Federation and a toxicologist <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6qYGxPSB7QoJ:https://archive.apvma.gov.au/application_summaries/60514.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">whose longstanding ties to the chemical industry</a> the organization did not disclose. Participants were assured that BPA posed no risk to human health. Several <a href="http://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/qa-twitter-session-on-plastics" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">plastic industry</a> trade sites <a href="http://www.britishplastics.co.uk/News/q-and-a-makes-sense-of-science-behind-plastics-packaging/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">praised</a> the event. One welcomed Sense About Science’s efforts, reporting that “<a href="http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20140417/NEWS/140419934/using-social-media-to-answer-consumer-questions-about-plastics" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">plastic packaging</a> was stoutly defended.”</div><div data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span data-shortcode-type="dropcap" class="dropcap" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBetaMono-ExBold_web, Consolas, " andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" float="float" left="left" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" px="px" margin-top="margin-top" margin-right="margin-right" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white">THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY pioneered tactics to fight regulations by manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that cigarettes kill. So it should be no surprise to encounter a strategy among defenders of the e-cigarette that also centers around doubt. If we don’t know for certain that a product is safe, we might urge caution. Sense About Science has argued the opposite: so long as we don’t know the product is unsafe, medical professionals have no business urging regulation.E-cigarettes turn chemical solutions into a nicotine-filled mist, which consumers ingest without the added harm of tobacco tar. When the devices hit the American market in 2007, sales <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160305163645/http:/www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/tobacco/Documents/Media/State%20Health-e-cig%20report.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">quickly took off</a>. Tobacco companies increasingly dominate the industry, which is projected to <a href="http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/j9kj2j/global" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">be worth $54 billion</a> by 2025. A <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6514a1.htm?s_cid=mm6514a1_w" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">recent national survey</a> found a <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6514a1.htm#F1_down" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sharp rise in e-cigarette smoking</a> among high school students — from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 16 percent last year.The skyrocketing popularity of e-cigarettes among young people worries public health experts because so <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/19/1972.full#sec-5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">little is known about the devices’ safety</a>. E-cigarettes are too new for scientists to have assessed their long-term health risks. British and American scientific bodies have reacted to this paucity of evidence with different views of the relative dangers.Last year, Public Health England joined other British public health organizations in encouraging smokers to use e-cigarettes as an aid in quitting tobacco. The Royal College of Physicians effectively endorsed this view in April, when it argued against regulating a product that could help smokers quit.But American public health officials worry that nicotine, which is as addictive as heroin and cocaine, will hook young smokers and cause lasting harm to their still-developing brains. Nicotine is linked to immunosuppression as well as cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal disorders. There is evidence that it interferes with chemotherapies and may even play a role in cancer. Researchers are just beginning to study whether the more than <a href="http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/15-10185/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">7,000 flavoring chemicals</a>, which typically aren’t disclosed on e-cigarettes, are safe when inhaled.Back in 2012, the British Medical Association <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:glhEvxG1mAIJ:https://www.bma.org.uk/-/media/files/word%2520files/news%2520views%2520analysis/press%2520briefings%2520new/bmabrief_smoking.docx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">called for a ban on the devices in public</a> in order to “ensure their use does not undermine smoking prevention and cessation by reinforcing the normalcy of cigarette use.” BMA reaffirmed this judgment as recently as this past June, despite the opposing position of the Royal College of Physicians. Sense About Science reacted to BMA’s call for a ban by asking the association to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140426234128/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/news.php/364/whats-the-evidence-for-banning-electronic-cigarettes" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">produce evidence</a> that e-cigarettes caused harm. “This move towards heavy regulation appears to be driven by the fear that e-cigs might be harmful or act as a gateway to conventional tobacco — despite little or no evidence for either claim,” the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140426234128/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/news.php/364/whats-the-evidence-for-banning-electronic-cigarettes" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">organization argued</a> on its website in 2013, two years before Public Health England endorsed e-cigarettes as a tool to quit smoking. Such regulations, Sense About Science stated, could do more harm than good by inhibiting access to products that may help reduce harm from smoking tobacco cigarettes.Although Sense About Science has demanded evidence that e-cigarettes cause harm, it seems poised to cast doubt on the evidence when it turns up. In August, the organization challenged the relevance of research presented that month at a cardiology conference showing that nicotine in e-cigarettes can stiffen arteries, an early indication of heart disease. Sense About Science’s <a href="http://senseaboutscience.org/activities/response-to-stories-suggesting-that-vaping-is-as-bad-for-the-heart-as-cigarettes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">expert dismissively compared</a> the effects of nicotine documented in the research to those of “watching a thriller or a football match.”Here in the United States, just this past May, the Food and Drug Administration moved to regulate e-cigarettes, including banning sales to those 18 and under. The CDC, too, takes the health risks of nicotine seriously. Last fall, the centers called for strategies to reduce the use of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. “The potential long-term benefits and risks associated with e-cigarette use are not currently known,” the CDC reported. “What is known is that nicotine exposure at a young age may cause lasting harm to brain development, promote nicotine addiction, and lead to sustained tobacco use.”</div><div data-reactid="233" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span data-shortcode-type="dropcap" class="dropcap" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBetaMono-ExBold_web, Consolas, " andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" float="float" left="left" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" px="px" margin-top="margin-top" margin-right="margin-right" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white">HAVING ESTABLISHED ITSELF as a credible voice in debates about science and industrial regulation in the United States and Britain, Sense About Science has set out for what may prove to be its most challenging assignment. In July, following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, <a href="http://senseaboutscience.org/eu/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Sense About Science established an EU branch</a> in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Commission, which has placed tighter restrictions on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/business/eus-highest-court-upholds-strict-smoking-rules.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">e-cigarettes</a>, chemicals, and other potentially risky consumer goods than the United States has mustered. The new branch of Sense About Science plans to “<a href="http://senseaboutscience.org/who-we-are/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">monitor the use and abuse of scientific evidence in EU policy</a>.”Both Sense About Science and Sense About Science USA undertake some initiatives that serve the public interest. But the founder of the British organization worked with the architects of the tobacco industry’s disinformation strategy, and both groups have been known to promote science that favors private interests over public health. When an organization claims to serve as a neutral arbiter in high-stakes debates about science, it pays to do what Sense About Science does: ask for the evidence.This article was produced in partnership with the <a href="https://thefern.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Food & Environment Reporting Network</a>, an independent nonprofit news organization.</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="col-md-9 col-article col-blog" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 60px; padding-left: 15px; float: left; width: 727.5px; padding-top: 20px;"><main id="main" class="site-main" role="main" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><article id="post-2254" class="post-2254 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-food-for-thought category-our-investigations tag-sense-about-science tag-trevor-butterworth" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px;"><a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/" title="9:44 pm" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">January 22, 2018</a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://usrtk.org/author/stacymalkan/" title="View all posts by Stacy Malkan" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Stacy Malkan</a></div></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trevor Butterworth and his colleagues at Sense About Science/STATS have written for prominent news outlets and been quoted as independent experts on science and media.This fact sheet provides evidence that these groups and writers have long histories of using tobacco tactics to manufacture doubt about science and push for deregulation of products important to the chemical, drug and junk food industries.Related groups: <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Jon Entine/Genetic Literacy Project</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/science-media-centre/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Science Media Center</a>, <a href="https://theecologist.org/2016/jan/22/why-cornell-university-hosting-gmo-propaganda-campaign" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Cornell Alliance for Science</a><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Overview</h4><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/72-Document-Details-Monsantos-Strategy-Regarding-IARC.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">This Monsanto document</a> describes Sense About Science as a “Tier 2 Industry Partner” in Monsanto’s <a href="https://usrtk.org/pesticides/how-monsanto-manufactured-outrage-at-iarc-over-cancer-classification/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">PR plan to discredit</a> the World Health Organization’s cancer panel, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The Monsanto plan proposes Sense About Science for “leads industry response and provides platform for IARC observers and industry spokesperson.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Statistical Assessment Service</a> (STATS) <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">merged with</a> Sense About Science USA in 2014. Journalists have reported STATS is a “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/30/pharmaceutical-industry-fake-news-tobacco/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">disinformation campaign</a>” that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">tips the scales toward industry</a> and plays a key role for the chemical industry in the  “<a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">hardball politics of chemical regulation</a>.”</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">Sense About Science, STATS and its former parent group, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, have <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">roots in the tobacco industry PR wars</a> and have received funding from anti-regulatory foundations, dark money channels and industries they have defended.</li></ul><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Intercept Exposé on Sense About Science: Reporters Be Wary</h4><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">A November 2016 exposé in The Intercept,</a> “Seeding Doubt: How Self Appointed Guardians of ‘Sound Science’ Tip the Scales Toward Industry,” details the tobacco ties and industry connections of Sense About Science.“Sense About Science claims to champion transparency” but “does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination,” wrote Liza Gross. “When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">History of Defending Chemicals, Junk Food and Drugs </h4>Sense About Science was founded as a lobby group in the UK in 2002 by Dick Taverne, an English politician and businessman with <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">ties to the tobacco industry</a> and other industries Sense About Science has defended.<a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The US version of the group</a> launched in 2014 in Brooklyn under the directorship of Trevor Butterworth. From 2003 to 2014, Butterworth was an editor at <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">STATS,</a> which is now <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">merged with Sense About Science USA.</a>  Over his career, Butterworth has amassed a large body of work arguing for deregulation and attacking scientists and journalists who raise concerns about products important to the chemical, junk food and drug industries — for example <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/18/plastic-gender-study-media-opinions-contributors-trevor-butterworth.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">phthalates</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/04/09/bpa-the-scientists-the-scare-the-100-million-dollar-surge/#23693c3163c3" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">BPA</a>, <a href="http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20081005/news/810050333" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">vinyl plastic</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisprandoni/2015/03/05/when-the-left-peddles-bad-science/#46b570db425d" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">fracking</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/fashion/28skin.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">lead in lipstick</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/fashion/28skinside.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">formaldehyde in baby soaps</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/02/06/sweet-and-sour-the-media-decided-fructose-was-bad-for-america-but-science-had-second-thoughts/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">corn syrup</a>, <a href="http://www.theawl.com/2012/10/the-sugar-wars" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">sugary sodas,</a> <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/sweetener-sucralose-probably-doesnt-cause-leukaemia/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">artificial sweeteners</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/#48877cb773a8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Oxycontin.</a>Butterworth is also a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-butterworth-522b5048/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">visiting fellow</a> at Cornell University Alliance for Science, a communications campaign housed at Cornell University that is funded by the Gates Foundation to <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986952/why_is_cornell_university_hosting_a_gmo_propaganda_campaign.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">promote GMOs.</a> Butterworth runs <a href="http://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/qa-sense-about-science-usa-partnership" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">a workshop at Cornell</a> to teach his brand of media relations to students and young scientists.Rebecca Goldin, a professor of mathematics of George Mason University, is the Director of STATS and appears on the Sense About Science USA <a href="http://senseaboutscienceusa.org/who-we-are/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">staff page</a>.STATS was previously housed at George Mason University and filed joint tax returns with the Center of Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), a group that was hired by Phillip Morris in the 1990s to <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">pick apart media reports about tobacco</a>. STATS and CMPA have been vague about their funding. The bulk of <a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/#STATSfunding" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">funding for STATS</a> appears to have come from a small group of anti-regulatory foundations that are leading funders of climate change denier groups.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">OxyContin Defense </h4>The tactics of Butterworth, Goldin and STATS are evident in their work to defend Oxycontin; they wrote articles denying the problem of doctor-prescribed opioid addiction, criticized media coverage and argued against regulations to reign in prescriptions. See articles in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/#48877cb773a8" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/12/13/is-the-era-of-oxycontin-abuse-over/%2348877cb773a8&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNFZah-BIWab4bO7o94-GrBjGwpe3A" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Forbes</a> (Butterworth), <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140702203653/http://www.stats.org/stories/2012/attack_painkillers_misusing_statistics_jan31_12.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://stats.org/&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNHqzXV35UtO44M3S2tIKPQgcyP6Rw" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">STATS.org</a> (Goldin), and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/opioid-addiction-is-a-huge-problem-but-pain-prescriptions-are-not-the-cause/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/opioid-addiction-is-a-huge-problem-but-pain-prescriptions-are-not-the-cause/?wt.mc%3DSA_Twitter-Share&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNHSRJ5xB5K2--C9MWv7qbj1TVZH8Q" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Scientific American</a>, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/the-medias-not-telling-th_b_48239.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/the-medias-not-telling-th_b_48239.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNEWehL8WSruZKadqHIsbvruor4G_A" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Huffington Post</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/03/the_accidental_addict.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/03/the_accidental_addict.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNFiEVzeBM1CryeMsl6AMOp_LNT86w" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Slate</a> (former STATS Fellow Maia Szavalitz). A new analysis by <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/11/health/prescription-opioid-payments-eprise/index.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/11/health/prescription-opioid-payments-eprise/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1521228826414000&usg=AFQjCNGGfYtmEmYxcMYmPf8-uDDerOCJyA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Harvard researchers and CNN</a> found that doctor opioid prescriptions are indeed a problem: “opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money, and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she makes.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Climate Science Denial</h4>A 2002 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aint-Necessarily-So-Picture-Reality/dp/0142001465" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">book</a> by STATS/CMPA founder Robert Lichter, David Murray of STATS and Joel Schwartz of the Hudson Institute denied climate science, among other science stories, and employed many “disingenuous maneuvers” to attack the media, including omitting findings that didn’t fit their agenda and using shallow statistical analyses, according to a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170313025504/http://www.salon.com:80/2001/07/02/murray_4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">review in Salon by David Appell</a>. Paraphrasing the book, Appell wrote: “Are you worried about species dying out as a result of global warming? Don’t. Those scare stories are the doing of green scribblers who cherry-pick the scientific journals for alarming factoids and who work in cahoots with Volvo-driving scientists who skew their results in an effort to oppose progress and capitalism.” See below for more information about <a href="https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/#STATSfunding" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">STATS’ funding</a> from the climate change denial dark money network.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Chemical Industry Public Relations Writer</h4>Sense About Science USA Director Trevor Butterworth played a key role in the chemical industry’s propaganda campaign to discredit health concerns about the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) when he was at STATS, according to a 2009 <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195297.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">investigation</a> by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Journalists Meg Kissinger and Susanne Rust described Butterworth as an example of “chemical industry public relations writers” who do not explain their allegiances. They described the stealth role he played in industry’s “unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics – and people – the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation”:“The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth… He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry.”In companion article, Kissinger and Rust <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195302.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">described STATS</a> as “a major player in the public relations campaign to discredit concerns” about BPA. Although the group, “claims to be an independent media watchdog,” they wrote:“a review of its finances and its Web site shows that STATS is funded by public policy organizations that promote deregulation. The Journal Sentinel found documents that show that its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was paid in the 1990s by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to pick apart stories critical of smoking.”They noted that Butterworth’s 27,000-word STATS report criticizing media coverage of BPA – which was widely featured on plastic industry websites – “echoed the approach used in the tobacco analysis.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">“Friend” of Coke</h4>In 2014, a Coca-Cola executive described Butterworth as “our friend” to members of a Coke-funded front group, and pitched him as a person who could help fulfill their “need for good scientific journalists,” according to emails <a href="https://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">obtained by U.S. Right to Know</a>.The email exchanges involved Rhona Applebaum, then-chief science and health officer for Coca-Cola, and the leaders of the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), which was exposed by <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The New York Times</a> and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/11/24/apnewsbreak-emails-reveal-cokes-role-in-anti-obesity-group" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Associated Press</a> as a Coca-Cola front group that worked closely with Coke executives to shift blame for obesity away from sugary drinks. Applebaum <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-24/coca-cola-s-chief-science-officer-retires-after-obesity-outcry" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">resigned her position</a> at Coke and <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/research-group-funded-by-coca-cola-to-disband/?r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">GEBN closed down</a> after the scandal broke in 2015.In a <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/GEBN-Butterworth-march-2014.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">March 2014 email</a>, Applebaum forwarded the GEBN leaders a Harvard Business Review <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/03/when-research-should-come-with-a-warning-label" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">article by Butterworth</a> that attempts to discredit research linking sugar to weight gain, and described him as “our friend.” In a <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/GEBN-Butterworth-Nov-2014.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">November 2014 email chain</a>, Applebaum and the GEBN leaders discussed the need to recruit scientific institutions and get more scientists “on the circuit.” Applebaum recommended “the need for good scientific journalists as part of GEBN who focus on the evidence. Presenting for consideration Trevor Butterworth. Need that type of cross-fertilization.”GEBN vice president Steven Blair wrote, “I agree with Rhona about Trevor. I am pretty sure he is on my list of potential members.” Applebaum replied, “He’s ready and able.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Ally of Many Industry Groups</h4>Butterworth’s extensive writings defending chemicals, sugar and sugar substitutes have attracted the praise of many industry groups over the years.Trade groups that have promoted Butterworth’s work include the <a href="http://www.ameribev.org/blog/tag/trevor-butterworth/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">American Beverage Association</a>, the <a href="https://phthalates.americanchemistry.com/Research-Phthalates/Reproductive-Studies/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">American Chemistry Council</a>, the <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131010006601/en/Journalistic-Imbalance-USA-Today-Continues-Report-Selectively" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">North American Metal Packaging Alliance</a>, the <a href="http://www.bottledwater.org/health/container-safety/what-is-bpa" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">International Bottled Water Association</a>, the <a href="http://sucralose-org.co.uk/2011-international-sweeteners-association-conference-consensus-experts-recommend-low-calorie-sweeteners-such-as-sucralose-to-help-manage-weight/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">International Sweeteners Association,</a> the <a href="http://spotidoc.com/doc/355374/2014-food-packaging-summit---society-of-the-plastics-indu..." style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Plastics Industry Trade Association</a>, the <a href="http://www.ctpa.org.uk/content.aspx?pageid=273" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">cosmetics industry trade association</a>, the chemical industry’s <a href="http://www.safechemicalpolicy.org/suggests/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">policy website</a>, the <a href="https://cei.org/search/node/trevor%20butterworth" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Competitive Enterprises Institute</a>, the <a href="https://www.cato.org/events/cato-connects-trevor-butterworth-director-sense-about-science-usa" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Cato Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2014/04/anti-bpa-crusaders-baseless-fearmongering/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a>.The <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/why-you-cant-trust-the-american-council-on-science-and-health/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">American Council on Science and Health</a>, an industry front group that <a href="http://acsh.org/search?search_api_views_fulltext=butterworth" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">frequently promotes</a> Butterworth’s work, has described him as “a master junk science debunker” and also “our friend.”Butterworth is also listed as <a href="http://nationalpress.org/about-npf/funders/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">a friend</a> of National Press Foundation. The chair of Sense About Science USA, <a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/about/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Heather Dahl</a>, is “<a href="http://nationalpress.org/board/heather-dahl/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">immediate past chair</a>” of the National Press Foundation, and sits on NPF’s executive committee.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Sucralose Echo Chamber</h4>Butterworth is a prominent defender of artificial sweeteners whose safety is questionable. In 2011, Butterworth spoke at the International Sweeteners Association Conference and was featured in their <a href="http://sucralose-org.co.uk/2011-international-sweeteners-association-conference-consensus-experts-recommend-low-calorie-sweeteners-such-as-sucralose-to-help-manage-weight/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">press release</a> titled, “Experts Recommend Low-Calorie Sweeteners such as Sucralose to Help Manage Weight.”Identified as a journalist who regularly contributes to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, Butterworth said about sucralose, “The weight of considered scientific evidence, the result of careful, independent, expert scrutiny, again and again shows that there is no evidence of a risk to health.”As an example of how the industry echo chamber works to spin reporters: In 2012, Butterworth <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2012/04/24/controversial-italian-scientist-says-splenda-causes-cancer/#6188ef4856cc" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">wrote an article for Forbes</a> attacking a study that raised concerns about sucralose by Dr. Morando Soffritti, director of the Ramazzini Institute, which he described as “something of a joke.”In a 2016 <a href="http://www.foodinsight.org/splenda-sucralose-ramazzini-soffritti-safety-cancer-study" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">press release</a>, in response to another Soffritti study, the food industry front group <a href="http://webiva-downton.s3.amazonaws.com/877/fe/a/6001/FOE_Top11FrontGroups_1.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">International Food Information Council</a> featured Butterworth’s 2012 piece and attack quotes, and they were picked up by reporters at the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/splenda-sucralose-sweeteners-linked-to-leukemia-in-new-study-a6930556.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Independent</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3491310/Could-artificial-sweeteners-Splenda-trigger-cancer-Experts-warn-s-no-safe-dose.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Daily Mail</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12192163/Low-calorie-sweetener-linked-with-increased-risk-of-leukemia-study.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Telegraph</a> and <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865647310/Consumer-group-sounds-new-alarm-on-Splenda.html?pg=all" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Deseret News</a>, all of whom identified Butterworth as a source from Forbes.<a id="STATSfunding" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;" /><a id="STATSfunding" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">A Google search for the Ramazzini Institute turns up Butterworth’s 2012 Forbes hit piece as the first item.</a><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a id="STATSfunding" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Funded by Climate Change Denier Dark Money Network</a></h4><a id="STATSfunding" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">While STATS claims to be nonpartisan, the bulk of funding has come from a handful of conservative, anti-regulatory foundations that have played a key role in funding organizations that try to discredit climate science.</a><a id="STATSfunding" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">According to </a><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Intercept investigation</a>:“Between 1998 and 2014, STATS received $4.5 million, 81 percent of its donations, from the Searle Freedom Trust, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Donors Trust (a fund largely sustained by Charles Koch), and other right-wing foundations. Searle, which <a href="http://www.searlefreedomtrust.org/daniel-c-searle-1926-2007/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">describes its mission</a> as promoting ‘economic liberties,’ gave STATS $959,000 between 2010 and 2014.Anti-regulatory foundations, including these, spent over half a billion dollars between 2003 and 2010 to ‘manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change,’ according to a 2013 study by Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle.”In the <a href="http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/december/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">press release</a> about his study, Brulle identified the Scaife and Searle foundations as among “the largest and most consistent funders of organizations orchestrating climate change denial” and foundations that “promote ultra-free-market ideas in many realms.”The Scaife Foundation and Searle Freedom Trust have been key funders of STATS, with Scaife providing nearly all funding for the group between 2005 to 2007,according to a Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">investigation of STATS funding</a>, and Searle stepping up with almost a million dollars in funding between 2010 and 2014.The President and CEO of Searle Freedom Trust, <a href="http://donorscapitalfund.org/AboutUs/KimberlyDennis.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Kimberly Dennis</a>, is also chairman of the board of directors of Donors Trust, the group Mother Jones called the “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">dark-money ATM of the conservative movement</a>,” and a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/who-donors-trust" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">leading funder</a> of climate change denier and skeptic organizations. Under Dennis’s leadership, the Searle Foundation and Donors Trust sent a collective $290,000 to STATS in 2010, Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reported</a>.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Koch Industries / George Mason University Foundation</h4>Charles Koch, CEO of the petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries, gave over $100 million to 361 college campuses from 2005 to 2014, according to a Greenpeace <a href="http://polluterwatch.org/charles-koch-university-funding-database" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">analysis of IRS filings</a>. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connor-gibson/to-charles-koch-professor_b_9100904.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">George Mason University Foundation</a>, which received $45.5 million, was by far the largest beneficiary of this largesse.Students at GMU raised concerns about Koch funding <a href="http://powershift.org/blogs/gmu-students-question-koch-funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">in a 2014 letter</a> to the GMU president, noting that the university has been “criticized as being a subsidiary of Koch Industries.” In response to a public records request for information about Koch funding, the students “were told that all financial donations are funneled through the GMU Foundation, which does not have to respond to our FOIA request as a distinct private entity.”The GMU Foundation funded STATS sister organization CMPA $220,990 <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/GMUF2012.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">in 2012</a>, and $75,670 <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/GMUF2013.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">in 2013</a>, according to tax records. In those years CMPA also helped finance STATS. <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CMPA-2012.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">In 2012</a>, STATS reported a $203,611 loan from CMPA that “due to inadequate funding” has “not been reimbursed.” <a href="https://usrtk.org/sas2013-2/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">In 2013</a>, STATS reported a loan from CMPA for $163,914.Tax records for 2014 show no loans between the groups or donations from GMU Foundation. <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CMPA2014-.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">CMPA’s 2014 tax filing </a>shows compensation of $97,512 for Butterworth and$173,100 for Jon Entine, a longtime <a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">public relations operative with deep ties to the chemical industry</a>, who runs the <a href="https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/author/trevor-butterworth/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Genetic Literacy Project</a>, an <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jon-entine" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">agrichemical industry front group</a>.<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Wholly Independent?</h4>STATS now shares a website with Sense About Science USA, and provides this <a href="http://www.stats.org/about/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">note about funding</a>:“STATS.org is run by Sense About Science USA; it is funded grants from the Searle Freedom Trust and a donation from the American Statistical Association. Sense About Science USA is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and donations from members of the public. Sense About Science USA does not accept industry funding or support. Sense About Science USA is wholly independent of any university, society, or other organization.”The <a href="http://www.senseaboutscienceusa.org/donate/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">website conveys</a> a sense of grassroots support, noting that its campaign calling for the registration of clinical drug trials has drawn 30,000 donors. “We don’t have fancy offices. Sense About Science USA is in the back of a bakery and cafe. We put our money into doing, and every little bit helps.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Tobacco Ties</h4>Both STATS and Sense About Science have roots in the tobacco industry PR wars.STATS and CMPA were founded by Robert Lichter, PhD, a former Fox news commentator and professor of communications at GMU. Phillip Morris contracted with CMPA and Lichter during the 1990s, according to documents from the Tobacco Institute made available by the UCSF tobacco industry documents library.In 1994, Phillip Morris sought CMPA’s help dealing with the “recent onslaught of attacks on the tobacco industry” in the media, according to an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">internal memo</a> proposing strategies to “refocus the media’s attention on the need for objectivity.”In an email dated February 8, 1999, Phillip Morris vice president Vic Han referred to CMPA as “a media watchdog group that we have contributed to over the last several years,” the <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/54195302.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> reported.The founder of Sense About Science, Dick Taverne, also appears in the UCSF tobacco industry files. As Liza Gross explains in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Intercept</a>:“According to internal documents released in litigation by cigarette manufacturers, Taverne’s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">improve relations with its investors</a> and <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=njpd0116" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">beat European regulations on cigarettes</a> in the 1990s. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192?" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">undated memo</a>, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that ‘the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne,’ because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and ‘would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds.’During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the British branch of the powerhouse public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a “sound science” group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was a pitch Burson-Marsteller made to Philip Morris in a <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=ygjm0128" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">1994 memorandum</a>.”Taverne stepped down as chairman of Sense About Science in 2012. Sense About Science USA launched in 2014 in Brooklyn under the direction of Butterworth. The two groups are described as sister organizations with “close ties and similar aims.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Exposing ‘Bogus Science’ Through the Living Marxism Network </h4>Lord Taverne founded Sense About Science in 2002 to “expose bogus science,” according to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ghSuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=%22dick+taverne%22+AND+%22bogus+science%22&source=bl&ots=OZGR2OtqVb&sig=xeCz8LvmrEYtwmqnk2HrOD0_15o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQkNHXx93PAhUFwVQKHQkxBIcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22dick%20taverne%22%20AND%20%22bogus%20science%22&f=false" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">his memoir</a>. As Liza Gross explained in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Intercept</a>, early sponsors of the group included some of Taverne’s former business clients and companies in which he owned stock.As its first projects, Sense About Science organized a letter from <a href="http://www.gmwatch.org/news/archive/2003/5134-these-are-the-scientists-who-wrote-to-blair" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">114 scientists</a> lobbying the British government to “contradict false claims” about GMOs, and <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/article/vandalism-devastates-britains/14207" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">conducted a survey</a> highlighting the problem of vandalism against GMO crops.In 2000, Taverne helped create the “<a href="http://www.sirc.org/publik/cop_guidelines_q.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Code of Practice: Guidelines on Science and Health Communication</a>,” a manifesto from the Social Institute Research Center and the Royal Institution on the procedures journalists and scientists should use to avoid unjustified “scare stories” in the media.The Guidelines were the foundational document for Sense About Science and its sister organization, the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Science Media Centre</a>, a group that has been called <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/science-media-centre-of-attention-1.13362" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">“science’s PR agency.”</a> Partly funded by corporations, the Science Media Centre often promotes the views of scientists who downplay risk about controversial technologies and chemicals, and its earliest work involved <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2002/jun/02/gm.observersciencepages" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">defending GMOs using stealth tactics</a>.As writers <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">George Monbiot</a>, <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/268982/sense_about_science.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Zac Goldsmith</a>, <a href="http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Jonathan Matthews</a> and others have documented, both Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre originated from and are directed by a network of people connected to the Revolutionary Communist Party, which later morphed into <a href="http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=78" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Living Marxism</a>, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000607160440/www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM97/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">LM magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Spiked Magazine</a> and the <a href="http://www.instituteofideas.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Institute of Ideas</a>, which promote an idealized vision of technology, extreme free-market views and <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/1998/11/01/far-left-or-far-right/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">disdain for environmentalists</a>.[// USA]As <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Monbiot wrote</a> in 2003, “the scientific establishment, always politically naive, appears unwittingly to have permitted its interests to be represented to the public by the members of a bizarre and cultish political network.”<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Further reading:</h4><a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/how-self-appointed-guardians-of-sound-science-tip-the-scales-toward-industry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> The Intercept</a>: How Self-Appointed Guardians of ‘Sound Science’ Tip the Scales Toward Industry<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/09/how-lobbyists-are-spinning-weak-science-to-defend-bpa/245657/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Atlantic</a>: How Lobbyists are Spinning Weak Science to Defend BPA<a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/bpa_health_and_nuance.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Columbia Journalism Review</a>: BPA, Health and Nuance: STATS report criticizes media coverage but has its own faults<a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/11/industry-reacts-to-consumer-reports-bpa-report/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Consumer Reports</a>: Industry Reacts to Consumer Reports BPA Report<a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/statistical_advisory_board.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">CJR</a>: Meet the man who wants to help journalists with numbers<a href="https://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">USRTK</a>: Jon Entine: The Chemical Industry’s Master Messenger<a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986952/why_is_cornell_university_hosting_a_gmo_propaganda_campaign.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The Ecologist</a>: Why is Cornell University Hosting a GMO Propaganda Campaign?<h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">More on funders:</h4><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifemain050299.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</a>: Scaife: Funding Father of the Right<a href="http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/december/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Drexel University</a>: Not Just the Koch Brothers: New Drexel Study Reveals Funders Behind the Climate Change Denial Effort<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/scaife-family-foundations" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">DeSmog Blog</a>: Scaife Family Foundations<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/14789" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">DeSmog Blog</a>: Charles G. Koch; Richard Mellon Sciafe; Searle Freedom Trust; Donors Trust: Study Details Dark Money Flowing to Climate Science Denial<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/613470e79eb64a5f9a4880996e0fd7c5/george-mason-university-becomes-favorite-charles-koch" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Associated Press</a>: George Mason University Becomes a Favorite of Charles Koch<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connor-gibson/to-charles-koch-professor_b_9100904.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Huffington Post</a>: To Charles Koch, Professors are Lobbyists<div class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><footer class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="entry-meta-category-tag" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="categories-icon glyphicon glyphicon-th-list" title="Posted in" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; top: 1px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"> <a href="https://usrtk.org/category/food-for-thought/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Food For Thought</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/category/our-investigations/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Our Investigations</a>   <a href="https://usrtk.org/tag/sense-about-science/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Sense About Science</a>, <a href="https://usrtk.org/tag/trevor-butterworth/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Trevor Butterworth</a></div></footer></div></div></article></main></div><div class="col-sm-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; float: left; width: 242.5px;"></div><div class="col-sm-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; float: left; width: 242.5px;">
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</div></div></div><div>=omg covid delingpole zinc grift<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2020/08/10/how-uk-climate-science-deniers-turned-their-attention-coronavirus-covid-19">https://www.desmog.co.uk/2020/08/10/how-uk-climate-science-deniers-turned-their-attention-coronavirus-covid-19</a>[omg covid delingpole zinc grift]no pix twton  December 31, 2019 many of us were reflecting on the past year and thinking about what opportunities lay ahead. Few were paying close attention to early reports of<a href="https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> unexplained cases of pneumonia</a> thousands of miles away in Wuhan, the large capital city of China’s Hubei Province.But less than three months later, on March 23, Boris Johnson was ordering a<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/boris-johnson-orders-uk-lockdown-to-be-enforced-by-police" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> national lockdown</a> to try and stop that virus, by then known worldwide as COVID-19, from raging across the UK. This came 52 days after the chief medical officer of England had<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51325192" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> confirmed</a> the nation’s first two cases.The coronavirus crisis once again saw the UK divided — between those putting their trust in public health experts and their recommendations, and those quick to question the science on which the government claimed to base its decisions for controlling the pandemic. For those who have watched the decades-long efforts to slow climate action, this was a familiar phenomenon. And the coronavirus pandemic seemed to give fresh ammunition to some familiar faces.A close look at commentary on both COVID-19 and climate change reveals significant crossover between unqualified voices casting doubt on experts recommending action.Why?“There’s nothing mysterious about this,” says Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor of cognitive science, who studies the persistence of misinformation in society at the University of Bristol.“I think COVID is just climate change on steroids in a particle accelerator,” he says. “The same forces are happening: You have the inevitability of a virus which is the same as the inevitability of the physics. And opposing that you have politics which motivates some people to deny the inevitables and instead resort to bizarre claims.”<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-image: initial; margin: 1.5em 0px;" />Find out more about the crossover between COVID and climate science denial in <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/uk-covideniers" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog's special series</a><hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-image: initial; margin: 1.5em 0px;" /><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">'No need to panic’</h3>Commentators with a history of casting doubt on established climate science first turned their attention to COVID in the days just after Chinese authorities ordered the 11 million residents of Wuhan, a city the size of London, into<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51217455" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> lockdown</a>.On January 24,<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/ross-clark" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Ross Clark</a>, a columnist for The Spectator who has lamented<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Coronavirus-and-the-cycle-of-panic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “hysteria”</a> around COVID-19, said there was <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/there-s-no-need-to-panic-about-coronavirus" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">“no need to panic about coronavirus”</a> despite<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4e58e0f6-39d9-11ea-b232-000f4477fbca" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> warnings</a> from leading epidemiologists about the potential spread of the outbreak.On January 29, British economist<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2015/06/04/how-free-market-friendship-between-julian-morris-and-roger-bate-came-end" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Roger Bate</a> similarly<a href="https://www.aei.org/health-care/the-media-is-driving-the-overreaction-to-the-coronavirus/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> argued</a> on the website of the<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> American Enterprise Institute</a> (AEI), a climate science denying free-market lobby group, that news reports around COVID-19 were unnecessarily sparking a major political reaction.“A contagion will happen at some point, and it’s important we recognize it and react. Unless the coronavirus mutates into something far more dangerous, this isn’t it,” he wrote[spectator pix]the idea that governments and the media were overreacting to the coronavirus threat was echoed by libertarian online magazine<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/spiked" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Spiked</a>, which has taken<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/12/04/spiked-lm-dark-money-koch-brothers" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> funding</a> from notorious backers of climate science denial the<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-family-foundations" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Koch family</a>, and has<a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2002/12/10/packaging-precaution-2/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> included</a> Bate and other AEI scholars among its contributors. It published an article as early as January 30 saying there was<a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/01/30/treating-coronavirus-like-a-yellow-peril/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “mass hysteria in the newsrooms”</a> around COVID.By mid-February, the World Health Organization had declared that the threat of COVID-19 spreading across the world was<a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200215-sitrep-26-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=a4cc6787_2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “high”</a> — yet a relaxed attitude continued to prevail among some commentators.On February 19, centre-right blog ConservativeHome published an article by<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/daniel-hannan" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Daniel Hannan</a>, a columnist and former Tory MEP,<a href="https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2020/02/daniel-hannan-alarmism-doom-mongering-panic-and-the-coronavirus-we-are-nowhere-near-a-1919-style-catastrophe.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> claiming</a> that COVID-19 was unlikely to be as lethal as the common flu.Hannan, a leading figure in the UK’s campaign to leave the EU, has<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/17/revealed-us-uk-rightwing-thinktanks-talks-to-ditch-eu-safety-checks" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> links</a> to various American lobby groups that have spread misinformation on climate change including the<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/cato-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Cato Institute</a> and the<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/heritage-foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Heritage Foundation</a>. He encouraged ConservativeHome readers to “cheer up” and discouraged “panic” over the virus. That message was taken up by Clark in another<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Coronavirus-and-the-cycle-of-panic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Spectator article</a>, arguing that “coronavirus hysteria” was “the latest phenomenon to fulfil our weird and growing appetite for doom"[pix]clark told DeSmog he stood by his analysis but acknowledged: “Clearly, COVID-19 took off more than I, or virtually anybody imagined it would at that stage.”“There is a very broad range of opinions among virologists, epidemiologists and others who might be regarded as expert in this field,” he said, “so the idea that I am at odds with some mythical consensus of expert opinion is false.”“I have been around long enough to know there is no such thing as scientific consensus on either issue [climate change or COVID], nor indeed on any matter where evidence is still emerging and open to wide interpretation,” he added.Even after the World Health Organization<a href="https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> declared</a> the contagion to be a pandemic in early March, commentators who have long cast doubt on warnings issued by climate scientists continued to deny that COVID-19 was a major threat.Mail on Sunday columnist<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/peter-hitchens" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Peter Hitchens</a><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8113075/PETER-HITCHENS-Britain-infected-bad-case-madness.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> claimed</a> that Britain was infected by a “bad case of madness,” arguing that restrictions were being<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4xsk-SMA_8" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “driven by hysteria”</a> and “unreason.”The language was familiar: Hitchens has previously<a href="https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/758316115508461568" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> rejected</a> science showing human activity is responsible for global warming, and labeled measures to tackle climate change such as environmental taxes as<a href="https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/11/warmists-armed-with-windmills-are-the-real-threat-to-britain-1.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> a “sort of madness.”</a>For Lewandowsky, this “hysteria” narrative is part of a wider phenomenon of undermining expertise across the board, from Brexit, to climate change, and now COVID-19.Lewandowsky points out that this also extends to many on the fringes of the political debate, such as controversial commentator<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/katie-hopkins" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Katie Hopkins,</a> who had over a million Twitter followers before the platform banned her, and has said the public were being<a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/katie-hopkins-accused-spreading-crazy-21968180" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> “played”</a> by the government for being asked to wear face masks. Or Brexit Party leader<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/nigel-farage" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Nigel Farage</a>, who described a police visit to his home as “<a href="https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1257417176061001741" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lunacy</a>” after he apparently broke lockdown rules.Both have also cast doubt on the reality and<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzQJQogGTts" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> seriousness</a> of climate change.“They’re quite explicit about saying that one person’s fact is another person’s lie, because that then enables them to avoid accountability,” Lewandowsky argues.<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Miracle cures and conspiracy theories</h3>These commentators’ contributions to the debate haven’t been without consequence. Some have spread conspiracy theories that have had real-world impact, while others have admitted to ignoring official safety guidelines, putting the public at risk of catching the disease.Columnist<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/james-delingpole" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> James Delingpole</a> wrote in a March 28<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/03/wu-flu-notes/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> article</a> for the Spectator Australia titled ‘Wu Flu Notes’ that he had gone about his daily business despite having symptoms that align with coronavirus and that it was possible he had “infected lots of graduates.”Some days later, Delingpole posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesDelingpole/status/1244568890757320704" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tweet</a> claiming a “high-powered zinc formula” had helped him recover from the illness without the need to go into intensive care – despite <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saibala/2020/04/10/zinc-no-evidence-yet-to-support-its-effects-on-coronavirus/#7d69660e4151" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">little being known</a> about whether any such formula can be a cure for the virus.He went on to write, “what I’d like more than anything is for this stuff to be available on the open market for everyone. But to mass produce it my friend needs ££££. If I crowdfunded it who’d be interested?” He concluded his request by asking for “potential big money backers."[twt]delingpole’s zinc promotion was comparable to comments made by US conspiracy theorist<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/alex-jones" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Alex Jones</a>, who, a few weeks prior, had<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/alex-jones-denies-he-offered-covid-19-cures-on-inforwars-website" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> received</a> a cease-and-desist letter from a top New York attorney based on claims he had marketed and sold fraudulent COVID-19 treatments on his conspiracy website. US President Donald Trump was also widely criticised for suggesting that <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52407177" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">disinfectant taken internally</a> could be a treatment for the virus.Theories about miracle cures can take hold partly as a result of personal politics, Lewandowsky argues. Under lockdown, “you’re asked to stay at home and to look after other people by not doing what you’d like to do, and that is very challenging if you’re a believer in personal freedom and autonomy,” he says.The same can be said of the motivations for spreading misinformation on climate change: “A lot of climate denial is very high-pitched, frenetic, emotional, angry, toxic – and that’s all triggered because people’s identity is at stake.”The desire to reach for conspiracy theories may also stem from a need to feel that individuals still retain some control, says Evita March, a senior lecturer of psychology at Federation University Australia. “Conspiracy theories offer the believer some comfort in that there is still behavioural predictability,” she says.And there were plenty of conspiracy theories flying around, pushed by long-time climate science deniers.Piers Corbyn, brother of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, was quick to promote the idea that coronavirus was the<a href="https://twitter.com/Piers_Corbyn/status/1239367865784033280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1239367865784033280&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.desmog.co.uk%2F2020%2F04%2F01%2Fcoronavirus-covid-19-climate-denier-response" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> fault of politically liberal billionaires</a>, and that it was related to the<a href="https://twitter.com/Piers_Corbyn/status/1251116903701061634" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Chinese-developed 5G mobile network</a>.The latter conspiracy, also<a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/24/21231085/coronavirus-5g-conspiracy-theory-covid-facebook-youtube" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> promoted by Infowars’ Jones</a>, had significant real-world consequences. Over the Easter weekend it was<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52281315" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> reported</a> that 20 phone masts had been subject to arson attacks. According to Mobile UK, the trade association for four mobile network operators, an estimated 50 masts had been<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/attacks-cellphone-towers-coronavirus-5g-conspiracy-2020-4?r=US&IR=T" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> targeted</a> by April 15[bbc pix]david Lawrence, a researcher at campaign group Hope Not Hate, told DeSmog that theories around 5G have existed for a number of years, so “the stage was already set.” ”When the global COVID-19 outbreak occurred, there was both a susceptibility to be exploited and a ready-made explanation to hand,” he said.“In some ways this is similar to climate change,” said Lawrence, “in that people who work in industries that would be negatively affected by efforts to reduce carbon emissions might be more likely to find reasons to reject the scientific consensus.”Such conspiracy theories become popular — whether in relation to climate change or COVID-19 —  because they are a means of “simplifying and attributing blame,” particularly during a time when “people feel that they have lost control over their lives,” says Lewandowsky.“Some will seek comfort in the idea that there are bad people out there causing the pandemic because, for some, knowing there are bad people responsible for terrible things is more comforting than to assume that these things are uncontrollable,” he says. “It allows people to direct anger at someone.”<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Distrusting modellers</h3>Many commentators directed their fire at a familiar foe — scientific models.On April 1, the same day the United Nations announced the<a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/04/01/cop26-climate-talks-postponed-2021-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> postponement</a> of the annual UN climate change conference, two prominent UK climate science deniers<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-lessons-from-the-asteroid-that-didnt-hit-earth-11585780465" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> argued</a> in The Wall Street Journal that the pandemic had “dramatically demonstrated the limits of scientific modelling to predict the future.”<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/benny-peiser" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Benny Peiser</a> and<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/andrew-montford" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Andrew Montford</a>, the Director and Deputy Director of the UK’s principal climate science denial campaign group the<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/global-warming-policy-foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF),</a>  criticised policymakers for using academic research that was subject to a “lack of quality control.” “In normal times this doesn’t matter much, but it’s different when studies find their way into the policy world,” they wrote.They did not mention that the GWPF’s own approach to ‘<a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">peer-review</a>’, which undercover reporters in 2015 showed operated on the basis of sending reports to its members of its own advisory council. The model has been <a href="https://archive.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/17/peerReview.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">described</a> by UK charity Sense About Science, whose Advisory Council included GWPF advisor <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/matt-ridley" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Matt Ridley</a>, as “a way of trying to give scientific credibility to certain claims in the hope that a non-scientific audience will not know the difference.”Eight days later, Breitbart’s Delingpole similarly criticised scientific modelling,<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/09/trust-the-experts-on-coronavirus-sure-which-experts/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> dismissing</a> research from the University of Washington forecasting more than150,000 deaths from the disease across the US as “operating in the realms of purest fantasy.” Whether on climate change or the pandemic, “we have no idea whether or not we can trust” scientific experts and their modelling, Delingpole argued[pix BB]clark takes a similar view, telling DeSmog: “on both COVID-19 and climate change there are a lot of people who seem to favour the results of modelling over real-world observation.” Those who want action “will latch on to any model” that suits their ends, he claimed, and will “decide that is 'the science', that it is fact, beyond all challenge.”An<a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/13/an-epidemic-of-doomsday-forecasts/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> article</a> in Spiked likewise argued in April that “worst-case scenario thinking” and “doomsday forecasts” from models had clouded political judgement, referencing the obesity crisis, swine flu, and climate change.This process of regularly casting doubt on models represents the “weaponisation of the scientific method,” says Imran Ahmed, founder of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. “Those sorts of sly tactics that have been used by these groups have amounted to an entire culture of how they spread information, spread ideas, and build audiences for their groups.”“It’s expressed through philosophical strands which are anti-expert, faux-populist and conspiracies” and can include the “incel movement, climate denial, vaccine denial, identity-based hate,” he argues.“As new facts emerge and as the understanding of the scientific movement changes,” says Ahmed, “these actors look back at previous consensuses and say, ‘see, they were lying back then.’”<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Attacking environmentalists</h3>As well as attacking coronavirus experts on their response recommendations, many commentators who oppose climate action also attacked those looking further ahead by putting forward proposals to ensure recovery plans were consistent with governments’ environmental pledges.For months, commentators who regularly question the veracity of mainstream climate science denounced environmental activists for supposedly distracting the world with climate change amid the threat of pandemics.On March 12, Telegraph columnist<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/sherelle-jacobs" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Sherelle Jacobs</a><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/12/wests-neglect-science-has-left-us-chillingly-exposed-deadly/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> argued</a> that university funding should be redirected away from climate change research and towards “the scientifically uncontested problem of pandemics.” The day after, when the UK was effectively put under a national lockdown, Dutch climate science denial group<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/climate-intelligence-foundation-clintel" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> CLINTEL</a> published an<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200326040350/https:/clintel.org/message-clintel-fight-virus-not-carbon/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> open letter</a> titled “Fight virus not carbon.”<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A-green-recovery-how-we-get-there-Greenpeace-UK.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Greenpeace</a>,<a href="https://www.theclimategroup.org/news/major-businesses-call-accelerated-ev-switchover-next-step-uk-s-green-recovery" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> The Climate Group</a>, and many other environmental organisations believe that the government should include environmental policies in coronavirus economic recovery measures to “build back better,” particularly as the country seeks to position itself as a climate leader ahead of hosting the UN climate talks in November 2021.Some commentators spun this argument to imply that the environmental movement was happy that the virus has spread.On March 22, former Top Gear presenter<a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Jeremy Clarkson</a><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-old-age-is-cancelled-societys-about-to-collapse-and-the-greens-just-cant-stop-smiling-vs6zvf9mz" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> claimed</a> in the Sunday Times that “greens just can’t stop smiling” because COVID-19 was “their idea of a wet dream.” Spiked contributor Ross Clark echoed this position in a response to DeSmog’s questions, saying that “there is a strand of opinion on the left which wants these crises — climate change and COVID — to be as big as possible because they see it as a way of undermining capitalism, and other aspects of our lives, and reforming society in their own dream vision.”On March 25, a couple of days after Clarkson’s polemic appeared, Spiked editor <a href="https://www.desmog.co.uk/brendan-o-neill" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Brendan O’Neill</a> <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/25/covid-19-a-glimpse-of-the-dystopia-greens-want-us-to-live-in/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">similarly argued</a> that the pandemic was “a glimpse of the dystopia greens want us to live in.” “The truth is that if the COVID-19 crisis has shown us anything, it is how awful it would be to live in the kind of world greens dream about. Right now, courtesy of a horrible new virus, our societies look not dissimilar to the kind of societies Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion, green parties and others have long been agitating for,” he wrote.[pix] o’Neill reiterated this position when contacted by DeSmog, saying both the “green movement” and the reaction to COVID represented “privileged Westerners taking political decisions and actions” to the detriment of some of society’s most vulnerable. “Progressives should be questioning the impact of the reaction to COVID-19 on working people and poor people,” he said.In June, 57 charities<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/15/leading-uk-charities-urge-pm-seek-green-recovery-covid-19" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> wrote</a> to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking him to put the creation of jobs in low-carbon sectors at the forefront of his economic recovery plans. They also asked the government to cancel the debts of developing countries struggling with both the impacts of the pandemic and the climate crisis.Delingpole later wrote in a<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/22/greens-celebrate-coronavirus-lockdown-as-blueprint-for-new-world-order/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> column</a> for Breitbart saying environmentalists were celebrating the lockdown as a blueprint for a “new world order.” The GWPF took this argument one step further,<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200420092909/http:/www.thegwpf.com/uk-climate-assembly-calls-lockdown-a-test-run-for-greener-lifestyles/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> publishing</a> an image of a crying woman with the text, “net zero, like lockdown but permanent” — a reference to the UK government’s plans to slash the country’s emissions.As these pieces were appearing, a Twitter account claiming to represent the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) in the East Midlands<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52039662" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> posted</a> an image of an XR-branded sticker on a lamppost with the words, “corona is the cure, humans are the disease.”Official XR accounts were quick to condemn the tweet and<a href="https://twitter.com/extinctionr/status/1242789939617714178?lang=en" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> said</a> that they were not affiliated with the newly created account, which has since been deleted. But various outlets and commentators used the tweet to condemn the protest group.Gaia Fawkes, the environmental section of political blog Guido Fawkes,<a href="https://order-order.com/2020/03/25/extinction-rebellion-in-favour-of-extinction/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> suggested</a> the post showed that XR was “in favour of extinction,” though it acknowledged coordinators of the organisation had “distanced themselves” from the supposed splinter group. A spokesperson for the site told DeSmog it stood by its reporting despite well-publicised doubts over the authenticity of the East Midlands organisation, stating it was “unaware of any publicly available list of ‘official’ [XR] groups at the time.”The GWPF likewise claimed the Twitter account’s “anti-human sentiment” was “widely shared” among environmentalists,<a href="https://twitter.com/thegwpfcom/status/1242771429835276295" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> rejecting</a> claims that the East Midlands account was fake.Author and Guardian columnist George Monbiot suggests that while it is predominantly money that is behind climate science denial or tobacco industry lobbying, “with COVID-19, the motive definitely varies,” but the outcome is essentially the same.“There are a lot of very well-paid people who are very professional and they’re using the expertise that they’ve gathered in other areas of dispute about scientific facts and the policies arising from them, and applying those directly to the pandemic,” he argues.“Take their power seriously, but don’t take any of their arguments at face value,” Monbiot concludes. “It’s not worth trying to deconstruct the nonsense they come out with.”<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Political impact</h3>Unlike in the<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> EU referendum</a> or Trump’s presidential campaign, pushing anti-expert rhetoric may no longer be a winning strategy in the wake of COVID-19. Polling shows that despite worry about the pandemic and its impacts, the public still wants governments to<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/climate/coronavirus-climate-change-survey.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> tackle climate change</a>. And politicians attaching themselves to the anti-science bandwagon are now struggling in the polls.For the Centre for Countering Digital Hate’s Ahmed, attacking the concept of expertise around COVID-19 is “the first truly great strategic mistake by those who espouse this radical world view.”The US and UK are two of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and both have leaders “who have been denying evidence and fact,” says Lewandowsky. “Johnson and Trump are creating a situation in which the very thought that we could establish a common truth is under attack,” he says. Both are regularly backed by commentators who also openly question the concept of expertise, whether on climate change or coronavirus.But these positions have begun to hurt both leaders. Johnson has plummeted from a position of public popularity prior to the UK’s lockdown to a<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-v-keir-starmer-latest-polls-and-approval-ratings-3pxcpwmxp" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> negative approval rating</a> almost four months later. And the gap between the majority of Americans who disapprove of Trump’s leadership and those keeping faith with the president now sits at<a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> around 15 percent</a>, numbers that could see him lose November’s election.That may reflect a wider shift in the public mindset, Lewandowsky argues: “My hope is that the COVID crisis has kind of given us a reset here, and there’s some evidence that people are beginning to say that we do need experts and data.”</div><div>
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American Institute of PhysicsAssociation for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory MedicineBBSRCBeltane Public Engagement NetworkBerne DeclarationBiochemical SocietyBiomed CentralBMJ GroupBreakthrough Breast CancerBritish Ecological SocietyBritish Pharmacological SocietyBritish Psychological SocietyBritish Society for ImmunologyBritish Society for Paediatric Endocrinology & DiabetesBritish Society for Allergy & Clinical ImmunologyCancer Research UKCochrane CollaborationCore: Fighting Gut and Liver DiseaseCornell UniversityDepartment for Business Innovation & SkillsEdge Hill UniversityElsevierEmerson CollegeEpilepsy Research UKEsmée Fairbairn FoundationEurope PMC</td><td valign="top" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em;">F1000ResearchGatsby Charitable FoundationGenetics SocietyThe Institution of Engineering and TechnologyImperial College LondonInstitute of Biomedical SciencesInstitute of Food Science TechnologyInstitute of PhysicsInstitute of Physics and Engineering in MedicineInternational Association of STM PublishersJames Hutton InstituteJohn Innes CentreJohn Innes FoundationThe JRSST Charitable TrustKarolinska InstitutetKohn FoundationMedical Research CouncilMNDAMS SocietyNational Nuclear LaboratoryNational Press Foundation Natural Environment Research CouncilNature Publishing Group NEPI FoundationNewcastle UniversityNuclear Decommissioning AuthorityOpen Society FoundationThe Physiological SocietyPHG Foundation PLoSPortland PressPRE-val</td><td valign="top" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em;">Rothamsted ResearchRoyal Academy of EngineeringRoyal College of PathologistsRoyal Meterological SocietyRoyal Pharmaceutical SocietyRoyal Society of Chemistry SAGESainsbury LaboratorySense About Science USASociety for Applied MicrobiologySociety for EndocrinologySociety for Experimental BiologySociety for General MicrobiologySociety of BiologyTaylor & Francis The Biochemical SocietyThe Wellcome Trust UK Cochrane CentreUKCPIUnderstanding Animal ResearchUniversity College LondonUniversity of BedfordshireUniversity of CambridgeUniversity of EdinburghUniversity of HullUniversity of Liverpool- MRC Centre for Drug Safety ScienceUniversity of ManchesterUniversity of OxfordUniversity of Reading University of SheffieldUniversity of St AndrewsUniversity of StirlingUniversity of WarwickWiley<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">
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<div>wikispooks</div><div>
</div><div>The Wise Use perspective has been strongly promoted in the UK by the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Living_Marxism&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Living Marxism (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Living Marxism</a> (LM) network, which like Lyndon Larouche back-flipped from extreme left to extreme right. Wise Users were significant contributors to the LM-connected Channel 4 TV series Against Nature , in which environmentalists were portrayed as Nazis and the bringers of death and suffering to the Third World.<a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Ron_Arnold&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ron Arnold (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Ron Arnold</a> was also among the contributors to LM magazine, penning an article in the March, 1998 issue. According to the article, 'the anti-technology Unabomber who terrorised the USA for two decades, killing 3 and injuring 29 others' took his cue from the anti-technology philosophy of environmentalism which was operating like a self-consuming sickness at the heart of American society. According to the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=LM&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="LM (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">LM</a> archive: '<a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Ron_Arnold&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ron Arnold (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Ron Arnold</a>, author of "Ecoterror: The violent agenda to save Nature", suggests that society today suffers from a "Unabomber syndrome" - it "seems willing to entertain the notion of abolishing civilisation"...'. A picture caption for Arnold's article read, 'For Unabomber Ted Kaczynski environmentalism was the theory and assassination the practice'.Thanks to Wise Use, the PR tactic of mobilizing independent-seeming 'third parties' to advocate corporate causes gained a new momentum and a far more aggressive edge. The influence of Arnold and CDFE on the GM debate is all too apparent - from the aggressive use of PR tactics that include the use of fake citizens, fake organisations and fake public protest, to the designation of critics of GM as 'terrorists' and 'eco-imperialists'.The fake <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Center_for_Food_and_Agricultural_Research&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Center for Food and Agricultural Research (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Center for Food and Agricultural Research</a> (CFFAR), for instance, sought to portray mainstream environmental organisations as engaging in, or linked to, violence and 'terrorism' - a message reinforced through the multiple internet postings of the e-mail fronts <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Andura_Smetacek&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Andura Smetacek (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Andura Smetacek</a> and <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Mary_Murphy&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mary Murphy (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Mary Murphy</a>. Smetacek, Murphy and CFFAR have all been traced back to <a href="https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Monsanto" title="Monsanto" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Monsanto</a> and its Internet PR company <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Bivings_Group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Bivings Group (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Bivings Group</a>.CFFAR and Smetacek then used the concerns generated by their smears against organisations like Greenpeace to encourage scientists and others to lobby those organisations' funders to stop their financial backing. It is a tactic that comes straight out of the CDFE 'handbook'. To quote Arnold, 'We want to destroy environmentalists by taking away their money and their members.' (New York Times, Dec 19, 1991, emphasis added)PR firm <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Nichols-Dezenhall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nichols-Dezenhall (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Nichols-Dezenhall</a> set up a website called StopEcoViolence - very much along the lines of CFFAR's vandalwatch.org - which claimed to be the grassroots' initiative of a citizens' group. On its links page it lists CFFAR and Vandalwatch.org, as well as the Internet front sites of PR firm <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Berman%26_Co&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Berman & Co (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Berman</a><a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Berman%26_Co&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Berman & Co (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> & Co</a>. <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=ActivistCash&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="ActivistCash (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">ActivistCash</a> and the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Center for Consumer Freedom (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a>. The page also has links to CDFE, which it describes as 'a non-partisan education and research organization', and to the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute" title="Competitive Enterprise Institute" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> (CEI). In March 2002 <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Nichols-Dezenhall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nichols-Dezenhall (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Nichols-Dezenhall</a> linked up with CEI to sponsor a conference for journalists and corporate executives on 'eco-extremism'. (You too might be a terrorist. The war on the greens)Like <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Nichols-Dezenhall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nichols-Dezenhall (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Nichols-Dezenhall</a>, many of those at the forefront of attacks on critics of GM make use of CDFE's rhetoric. <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Patrick_Moore&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Patrick Moore (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Patrick Moore</a>, for instance, talks of environmentalists as 'ultraleftists and extremists' who 'use Gestapo tactics'. Moore claims issues like the GM debate are being influenced by 'pagan beliefs and junk science'. This directly echoes <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Ron_Arnold&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ron Arnold (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Ron Arnold</a>'s attacks on environmentalists as 'eco-fascists' and communists, as well as his call for a 'holy war against the new pagans who worship trees and sacrifice people'.Such claims have been picked up and repeated by GM sympathetic scientists. For instance, Prof <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Joe_Perry&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Joe Perry (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Joe Perry</a>, the chief statistician on the UK government's GM farm-scale evaluations, repeated Moore's claims about 'pagan beliefs' in a lecture on GM given as part of a series by and for Christians interested in science. He also quoted a claim of Moore's that the agendas of most environmentalists were principally about 'class warfare'. He also drew on Moore in a letter to The Guardian, in which he said Moore had 'pointed to the Trotskyists and anti-capitalists who ditched socialism for the environmentalist bandwagon when the iron curtain fell, and became influential within Greenpeace and similar pressure groups.' (see also responses to Perry)In May 2003, speaking at the Natural History Museum in London, the world renowned scientist <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Peter_Raven&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Peter Raven (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Peter Raven</a> also attacked Greenpeace over its opposition to GMOs, telling his audience, 'Last month, the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Congress_of_Racial_Equality&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Congress of Racial Equality (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Congress of Racial Equality</a> (CORE), one of America's most venerable and respected civil rights groups, confronted Greenpeace at a public event and accused it of "eco-manslaughter" through its support of international policies limiting development and the expansion of technology to the developing world's poor'. (for the truth about CORE)The British pro-GM lobby group <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Sense_About_Science&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sense About Science (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Sense About Science</a>, whose director and assistant director are both part of the <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=LM&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="LM (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">LM</a> network, has also adopted the Wise Use tactic of portraying critics of GM as violent extremists. Its Chairman, <a href="https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=Dick_Taverne&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dick Taverne (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Lord Taverne</a> claimed in an article in The Times that farmers and researchers were being intimidated by 'anti-GM campaigners' adopting 'the tactics of animal welfare terrorists'. The headline was, When crops burn, the truth goes up in smoke. Taverne admitted that environmental groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth 'may condemn violence', but concluded, none the less, 'The anti-GM campaign has become a crusade. Its champions... have become eco-fundamentalists, followers of a new kind of religion... when campaigns become crusades, crusaders are more likely to turn to violence.'</div><div></div><div>eopathy is a thriving industry not just in the U.K., but around the globe. The European market has grown <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/homeopathic-remedies-nhs" style="text-decoration: none;">60 percent</a> over a decade. According to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control, about 3.3 million Americans spent $2.9 billion on homeopathic remedies in 2007.The practice enjoys its biggest popularity in India, where it is officially recognized by the government as one of its national systems of medicine, and regulated by the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (<a href="http://indianmedicine.nic.in/index.asp?lang=1" style="text-decoration: none;">AYUSH</a>) under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. India is home to the <a href="http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/homeopathy-is-here-to-stay-974901.html" style="text-decoration: none;">largest number</a> of homeopathic practitioners in the world and has the most colleges in homeopathic education.While India remains a homeopathy stronghold, other national governments have come out strongly against it. In addition to the recent moves by the U.K. Parliament, Australia’s top body for medical research, the National Health and Medical Research Council, came out against homeopathy with a report issued earlier this year. “Based on the assessment of the evidence of effectiveness of homeopathy, NHMRC concludes that there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective,” the council wrote. It added a stern warning: “People who choose homeopathy may put their <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/homeopathy-not-effective-for-treating-any-condition-australian-report-finds" style="text-decoration: none;">health at risk</a> if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness.””We need governments around the world to recognize the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">dangers</a> of promoting homeopathy for life-threatening illnesses,” said Robert Hagan, a biomolecular scientist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Hagan is a member of the Voice of Young Science Network, a group of young researchers concerned that the use and promotion of homeopathy in the developing world is putting lives at risk. The group is part of <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/54/Homeopathy.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">Sense About Science</a>, a charity that educates the public about evidence-based science. In 2009, VYSN sent a letter to the World Health Organization urging the body to issue a statement condeming the promotion of homeopathy for the treatment of serious diseases. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">letter</a> states:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We are calling on the WHO to condemn the promotion of homeopathy for treating TB, infant diarrhea, influenza, malaria and HIV. Homeopathy does not protect people from, or treat, these diseases. Those of us working with the most rural and impoverished people of the world already struggle to deliver the medical help that is needed. When homeopathy stands in place of effective treatment, lives are lost.</blockquote>WHO responded with a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">warning</a> that people with serious conditions such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria should not rely on homeopathic treatments.Paula Ross, chief executive of the Society of Homeopaths, agreed with the concerns about promoting homeopathy remedies for TB, malaria or HIV and AIDS. But she said, "This is just another <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">poorly wrapped attempt</a> to discredit homeopathy by Sense About Science.""The irony is that in their efforts to promote evidence in medicine, they have failed to do their own homework,” said Ross. "There is a strong and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">growing evidence</a> base for homeopathy and most notably, this also includes childhood diarrhea."Sara Eames, president of the U.K.’s Faculty of Homeopathy, said it “seems reasonable to consider what beneficial role homeopathy could play” as possible treatments for serious disease. “What is needed is <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8211925.stm" style="text-decoration: none;">further research and investment</a> into homeopathy."The British government disagrees with Eames’ assessment. The U.K.’s announcement of the possible national ban, made in November, comes nearly six years after the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a damning 2010 <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/4502.htm" style="text-decoration: none;">report</a> that said homeopathic remedies performed no better than placebos, adding that the practice was based on principles that are "<a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;">scientifically implausible</a>."The report concludes:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Government's position on homeopathy is confused. On the one hand, it accepts that homeopathy is a placebo treatment. This is an evidence-based view. On the other hand, it funds homeopathy on the NHS without taking a view on the ethics of providing placebo treatments. We argue that this undermines the relationship between NHS doctors and their patients, reduces real patient choice and puts patients' health at risk. The Government should stop allowing the funding of homeopathy on the NHS.</blockquote><blockquote style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We conclude that placebos should not be routinely prescribed on the NHS. The funding of homeopathic hospitals — hospitals that specialise in the administration of placebos — should not continue, and NHS doctors should not refer patients to homeopaths.</blockquote>The report came on the heels of an <a href="http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/130.full" style="text-decoration: none;">editorial</a> published in the Journal of Medical Ethics by David Martin Shaw of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. In it, he outlined five potential unethical effects of homeopathy:<ol style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li>Patients may seek homeopathic remedies instead of, rather than as well as, traditional medicine</li><li>It is ethically dubious to spend NHS funds on treatment that has no evidence base</li><li>Homeopathy can involve deceiving the patient; indeed, if the only effect is placebo, it is probable that deception is essential to the practice of homeopathy</li><li>Support for homeopathy could weaken patient confidence in the NHS, and in science and medicine more generally</li><li>Funding homeopathy distracts attention from the fact that there are other complementary therapies that are efficacious</li></ol>There is another ethical issue: In the U.K., there is no legal regulation of homeopathic practitioners. “This means that anyone can practice as a homeopath, even if they have <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;">no qualifications or experience</a>,” notes the NHS.The NHS <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;">website</a> lists several common conditions that are commonly treated with homeopathy, including asthma, high blood pressure, ear infections, hay fever, allergies, dermatitis, arthritis and mental health conditions, such as depression, stress and anxiety.“There is <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;">no good quality evidence</a> that homeopathy is an effective treatment for these or any other health conditions,” says the NHS. “Some practitioners also claim that homeopathy can prevent malaria or other diseases. There is no evidence to support this and no scientifically plausible way that homeopathy can prevent diseases.”Sense About Science has been monitoring public perceptions of homeopathy. In its written submission to the parliamentary report, it said homeopathic remedies are "often confused with herbal medicine (and, related to this, that people were often<a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/4504.htm#a18" style="text-decoration: none;">unaware of the mystical belief in water memory</a> and in 'like cures like' on which it is based).”Importantly, they said people assumed that because a homeopathic remedy is supplied by the NHS, it “must be effective” and “there must be <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/4504.htm#a18" style="text-decoration: none;">something in it</a>.”But there’s another, more pressing issue that has brought this possible ban to the foreground: the national budget. In an <a href="http://www.lbc.co.uk/watch-jeremy-hunt-live-on-lbc-from-7pm-96835" style="text-decoration: none;">interview</a> last year, U.K. health secretary Jeremy Hunt, responding to a question about spending on homeopathy, said, "When resources are tight, we have to follow the scientific evidence and spend the NHS's money on what works."</div><div>=</div></div></div><div>
</div><div><p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" important="important" padding="padding">Heather Dahl is CEO of Indicio.tech. She was previously executive director and CEO of Sovrin Foundation, a public service utility enabling self-sovereign digital identity on the internet. She is Co-Founder of CynjaTech which provides microledger data security, encrypted communication channels and guardianship tools for blockchain technology.<p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" important="important" padding="padding">For over a decade, Heather has been at the forefront of emerging technologies in cybersecurity, data & analytics and technical infrastructure, digital identity, privacy and has received industry recognition for creating best practices in innovation research. As a business leader and entrepreneur with experience in enterprise, nonprofit, and a Big Four consulting firm, she has taken legacy organizations through the process of digital transformation, leveraging technology to build sustainable and profitable futures.<p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" line-height="line-height" important="important" padding="padding">Heather is also an award-winning network news leader and journalist having held posts as Chair of the National Press Foundation Board, Chairman of the Congressional Radio & Television Correspondents Association, Board Chairman for Sense about Science USA. She was a Senior Producer at the Fox New Channel Washington Bureau and has experience covering news for Public Radio International, KUOW Seattle, PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio, C-SPAN and Reuters TV. Heather also served on the staff of U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith from her home state of Oregon.<p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" important="important" padding="padding">She is co-author and creator of The Cynja children’s book series that teaches kids of all ages about cybersecurity.<p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" important="important" padding="padding">Heather holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins, an M.S. from Columbia University and is a graduate of Willamette University.grimm intercept BGR other PRs shops1211 conn ave DC</div><div>=</div>