During the Obama administration, he was concerned about vaccines causing autism and it showed when it came to guidance about swine flu vaccines. His administration banned multi-use vials because of his party's insistence that preservatives caused the disorder.
Glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup in the United States, has been placed on California's Proposition 65 list, which requires a cancer warning label, despite the fact no regulatory body can find evidence it harms anyone, much less that it causes any cancer.
A bizarre diatribe published by the hard-left political fanzine Progressive.org came across my desk today. I even got a mention. I don't delve into politics much, I am a registered Independent and I voted for Clinton in the 2016 election, those are all known, but I run a non-partisan consumer advocacy non-profit and we don't do politics, so I was surprised anyone in a political site would even know who I am.Then I looked at the author: Paul Thacker.
Last night was the premiere of "Food Evolution", a documentary on the science in our dinner, and I saw it with a large audience for the second time.Wait, premiere? Second time? Which is it?It's both. And that is how it became a tale of two cities. And maybe even a metaphor for the two Americas we now live in.Two weeks ago I moderated a panel on communicating science and, more importantly, risk, at the University of Guelph, Canada's most prominent agriculture school. In the evening, there was a showing of "Food Evolution" in an auditorium there. I don't know how many people attended, it was packed, and before the movie there was a show of hands on how many people were okay with GMOs, how many distrusted them, and how many were unsure.
Since 2014, China has spent $4 billion on advanced agricultural science and is approving new technologies rapidly. Meanwhile, our food science regulatory system remains trapped in the 1980s, paralyzed by environmental lobbyists who buy full-page ads in the New York Times claiming they are "unsure", it just "needs more testing."
Attorney Patrick Murphy is representing infamous sue-and-settle environmental lawyer Stephen Tillery, senior partner and founder of Korein Tillery, as plaintiff in the court of Senior U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert in a lawsuit against Advanced Analytics Consulting Group, who Tillery says he gave $500,000 to in order to have them come up with results he could use in litigation against minor league baseball, but did not.
President Donald Trump spent a great deal of his early days in the White House rolling back decisions made by his predecessor. That is the usual political stuff; President Barack Obama also did it to President George W. Bush. But there is one science policy initiative Trump has not touched so far — and shouldn't.That beneficial policy relates to modernizing how genetic alteration of organisms is approved.
You are about to hear a huge sigh of relief from the entire science journalism community, because Alan Alda, a man who can interview E.O. Wilson and Jim Watson with ease, who hosted the terrific Scientific American Frontiers, and founded the Alan Alda Center for Communication Science at Stony Brook University, has trouble communicating.
Solar energy, with tens of billions in subsidies to keep it afloat, now employs more people than the fossil fuel alternative it is irrationally pitted against in media - coal. Solar panels are fine for elites, just like organic food is - but like with organic food we shouldn't manipulate data to match our belief system.
Whole Foods lies to its customers. I have no problem stating that plainly, the evidence is right on their website and if their lawyers object to that, their fraudulent house of cards will come crashing down around them. It's well-known in the science and regulatory community but is often a shock to the public. Recently, I was giving a talk and an agriculture executive handed me a print-off from the Whole Foods website, their Organic landing page. A few things were highlighted. "Can that be right?" he asked.
When "Guardians of the Galaxy" was in development, I was skeptical. When I was a kid, they were simply different Avengers, in space. Seriously, they had a Major from America, an archer, a strong guy, etc. And everyone knows Marvel had sold off the movie rights to the popular characters to prevent bankruptcy so they had only B level characters left.But one of those B-level characters was Iron Man, and Jon Favreau, Robert Downey, Jr. and a whole team of four writers (usually a bad sign) turned in arguably the best superhero movie of all (1). And it just so happened other B-level characters made up The Avengers, and a boom was born.
For the better part of this century, the federal government has promoted the notion that only government-funded science is real science, and the private sector is the icky kind that, let's face it, the kind of people who overwhelmingly prefer to stay in academia dislike. (1)
A group called US Right To Know is embracing the rich history of the anti-science movement; a history filled with lots of revenue for smear campaigns against scientists, companies in the science business, and more overtly, political allies opposed to the same science they are.
