Some stories I pursue, others I let unwind a bit to make sure they are for real. The cover story I wrote on Robert Kennedy Jr. for this Sunday’s Washington Post magazine falls into the latter category. You couldn’t find a more unlikely author of this story than me. Last summer, I wrote two critical posts…Continue Reading…
In 1997, I was living in Manhattan when the New York Observer—a sardonic weekly—published a front page story entitled, “New York is Germ City!” As the Seattle Times recalls:
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has vibrated the internet with a whacky speech he recently gave to an audience of climate skeptics. Here’s the bit that many are picking up on: “I don’t know whether or not fluoridating the water helps people’s teeth become better or not,” said Rohrabacher, invoking his childhood memories. “I don’t know…Continue Reading…
On Twitter, a popular health advocate makes this observation: From 1997-2007, the first 10 years of GMOs, there was a 265% increase in ER visits due to food allergic reactions http://t.co/U1PlwBvpU5 — Robyn O’Brien (@foodawakenings) May 21, 2014 Pretty incredible, isn’t it? Here’s another correlation that will blow your mind. You can check out all…Continue Reading…
In my previous post, I reported on legal threats recently made by Mike Adams against Forbes and one of its contributing writers, Jon Entine, who oversees the Genetic Literacy Project. Entine is hardly the first science writer/blogger to shine a spotlight on Adams, whose penchant for raw foods, alternative health treatments and various outlandish conspiracy…Continue Reading…
It is not unusual for public figures to be unhappy with how they are portrayed in the media. Sometimes their complaints are understandable, other times not so much. What is unusual is for a public figure to take legal action against a journalist. That’s because in the United States there is a very high bar…Continue Reading…
I’m not feeling the love:
Unlike some in the science blogosphere, I haven’t found it worthwhile to write much about Mike Adams, whose conspiracy-laden screeds and paeans to raw foods and unproven alternative medicine treatments appear on a website of his called Natural News. (I have briefly discussed Adams on one previous occasion.) Here’s an apt description from David Gorski: His website is a one-stop shop, a repository…Continue Reading…
This tweet from today caught my eye: One picture that will convince everyone to vaccinate their kids http://t.co/cPH5cnbd9C — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) April 8, 2014 The smart folks at ThinkProgress seem to have missed all the media coverage of this recent study, which found that, for those already suspicious or concerned about vaccines, images of sick children…Continue Reading…
The anti-GMO troops in the United States received some unwelcome news this week from Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). At a congressional hearing on Thursday, Hamburg reiterated the FDA’s support for voluntary GMO labeling initiatives, but nothing beyond that: The way FDA has for many years interpreted the law…Continue Reading…