Special Report - Online activists are silencing us, scientists say Reuters March 2019

Lucibee said:
I'm with Trevor on this. There is legitimate criticism of IARC on this and many other issues.

Straying into anti-ag/anti-pharma areas is why we get labelled as anti-science and the assumptions that we are all anti-vaxx, alt-med-munching loons. And, tbf, that's what I thought too before I got to know you all. Don't make me change my mind!
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I take your point, but some of us do have our feet firmly in several arenas! I will do my best to persuade you I do know a bit about GM ( Monsanto tactics) and GM Watch's work!

https://www.soilassociation.org/new...evidence-of-health-impacts-of-very-low-doses/
 
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Suffolkres said:
I take your point, but some of us do have our feet firming in several arenas! I will do my best to persuade you I do know a bit about GM ( MonsantO tactics) and GM Watch's work!
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I don't doubt that you do, but so do I. And I understand much of the science behind it (not just a bit). Biotech is our friend not our foe. I'm not saying that this area is not complex (scientifically and politically), but there has been a lot of misinformation spread about it over the years by certain "interest" groups.

If you want to take this discussion elsewhere (Convo), I'd be more than happy to tell you where I am with it all.

[ETA: Although I will leave this alternative to Kelland's article here for consideration: https://allianceforscience.cornell....still-burns-witches-if-theyre-named-monsanto/]
 
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Peter Trewhitt said:
Is it looking like, other than the New York Times, this article is not being picked up by other media outlets?

Obviously there are still the weekend papers, but previous spin articles from SMC pet journalists have been picked up much quicker. Does that mean that this group are losing their control of the narrative or that journalists are now seeing this for what it is?
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Dropping it in the middle of the Brexit chaos was obviously a bad move, I'm sure most newspapers are far too busy dealing with other stories. Overall it's a bit of a nothing-berder, sorry for bringing politics into it
 
TiredSam said:
I find this piece very heartening. "Scientists" for the purporses of this article means "BPS activists", so it is wonderful to hear that that they are finding it hard to recruit new members and that their number of research projects is falling dramatically.

The writer ignores all the real scientists working on ME. This piece is so badly researched and badly written (its bias and manipulations are so easy to analyse and demonstrate) that it should be another easy own goal by Sharpe.

I notice that none of his abusive tweets are referred to.


That's impressive. What a shame the author wasn't able to write that he cut his teeth as a climate denier or anti-vax activist. She undermines her piece in so many ways. 10,000 people signed a petition did they? I wonder why. Any fair minded person encouraged to take an interest in ME by this article will find that they only have to scratch the surface to see that patients are right, and we will win more friends, as we have done before. Send them all to the virology blogs by all means Ms. Kelland, and thanks :thumbup:.


Vociferously. Nice.
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I agree with you, she does undermines her piece and glad to hear that they are loosing people in their filed. However, we know they have not gone just moved to FND like SW?

Do we know or can we find out if the PACE trial authors paid for the article? Should this be public knowledge if they did? They were discussing something similar on BBC radio 4s the media show about journalists pushing forward a topic or product and good journalists declare that they have been paid to write them. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00035pg
 
Peter Trewhitt said:
Thank you for the correction, I googled as well, but included New York in my search terms to ID the article I knew about and still got the name wrong. Interesting that it is being picked up in the States were the flaws in this research have been officially recognised, but not so far in the countries where the most eminent PACE appologists are located.
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As I understand it the New York Post is a tabloid style paper, but I may be wrong.
 
I think that also the difference between this and the last time this story was used, was last time the story was generated by the SMC so therefore they promoted it. Really this time it’s just a regurgitation with nothing new and they were lucky to get a long article and devoted journalist. I’m not sure it will spread, hopefully not, it’s probably already done an amount of harm.
 
SallyC said:
As I understand it the New York Post is a tabloid style paper, but I may be wrong.
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Well, the Wikipedia article on the New York Post says:
According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, the Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible)
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This 1983 headline is fairly infamous:

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Andy said:
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With themselves at the heart, our heroes really obviously.
I’m pleased they’ve acknowledge this and rebuffed it as it is news and important , the psychological brigade are obviously only interested in themselves and have the grip of influence still but everything is indeed moving around them sooner than expected which is scaring them.. I just think the Americans collaborations are much better than the CMRC which initially insisted we be a broad church, had a Crawley as top dog and has apparently only recently fully moved towards the biomedical research effort. I still think Action for ME are pushing the global thing instead of tackling the multitude of things in the uk that could be lobbied eg why did we only learn what GPs were being taught recently?, what criteria do they support, why Isnt there more push to get oxford criteria retired, why is severe care not bothered about, why wasn’t there attempt to get the Surrey CFS service physician led...
 
Stewart said:
"... the Science Media Centre, a group whose aim is to connect certain scientists such as Tarone with journalists like Kelland, and which gets its largest block of funding from corporations that include the agrichemical industry. Current and past funders include Monsanto, Monsanto's proposed merger partner Bayer AG, DuPont and agrichemical industry lobbyist CropLife International."

So how does that fit with the SMC's charitable status?
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I noticed that Sharpe tweeted that the "harassment" he alleges is common for scientists, essentially undercutting the whole point of the article, doubly so by saying it in the wake of an uncritical puff narrative published worldwide that repeats allegations that a tribunal rules to be grossly exaggerated.

Somehow, "some people are mean on the Internet" is not quite the impactful revelation they thought it would be. And by entirely ignoring the substance of the matter it really does not convince anyone who isn't interested in gossipy drama.

What % of ME research funding goes to this stuff again in the UK? About 90%? With Chalder and Crawley having a sizable share. That's some mighty loud silence. I wish one day I could be as silenced as these guys are, basically holding all the power imbalance and whining that making extraordinary claims with subjective, low-quality evidence, means having serious scrutiny.

This research basically suffers from Affluenza, it's been pushed and prodded by political pressure even after the bar was lowered so far it probably reached the water table.
 
Barry said:
So how does that fit with the SMC's charitable status?
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It's definitely very charitable to mediocre ideologues who need their research to be propped up and coddled since it can't stand on its own.

Suck at science? Can't produce real research? Managed to muscle through a turd across the finish line with political pressure but now it's far too obvious it's massively flawed? Let the charitable SMC help you keep your reputation intact by publishing PR puff pieces worldwide. Because sometimes you really have to drill in some people's skull that the emperor's new clothes are totally wonderful and worth every penny. That's the SMC promise.
 
chrisb said:
This was a reference to the fact that Kelland is a modern languages, rather than science, graduate. Given the failure to interview a certain scientist about the issue this might be significant.
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Ah, I see. Thank you.

Now they have this article, they can use bits as "evidence" whenever they want. Very unfortunate, for lack of a more expletive description.

Re not commenting publicly on this article, MEAction has an excellent point. On the other hand, our community is always wanting good articles on ME. This is an opportunity to provide correct information. To say nothing to bullies and turn the other cheek doesn't work IMO.
 
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