Sensational Science
We all know that journalists and the media tend to over-exaggerate things to grab the readers attention and manipulate their feelings. But what happens when scientists sensationalise their findings?
It’s not as uncommon as you might think. Science sensationalism has been behind some pretty big heists, that have had widespread effects on society.
For instance, in The Big Fat Surprise Nina Teicholz describes what happens when a key scientist pursued an uproven hypothesis, seemingly driven by a desire for fame and fortune rather than with the public’s best interests at heart. In 1961, Ancel Keys manoeuvred to have the American Heart Association recommend that Americans cut saturated fat and cholesterol from their diets in order to reduce their risk of heart disease, and replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats such as corn and soybean oil. There was little evidence to support either of these recommendations — the major motivating factor for Keys seems to have been ambition and an egotistical desire to make the headlines.
Ultimately, this move paid off. Within two weeks, Keys appeared on the front cover of Time magazine, changing the history of nutritional medicine forever. Mass media soon jumped on board, adding their own flavour of aggrandisement to Keys’ claims and fanning the flames of the low-fat movement further. And it wasnt long before big business and politics jumped on board, bringing added pressure to scientific researchers to toe the low-fat line for almost 60 years. In more than one instance, scientists’ careers suffered because they spoke out against the movement, and their announcement of findings to the contrary fell on deaf ears for the period in which low-fat diets reigned supreme.
It has only been recently, as interest in the ketogenic diet has gained momentum (ironically, the ketogenic diet has been shown to reverse the symptoms of heart disease), while authors such as Teicholz have debunked the myths surrounding saturated fats. At last, we’re starting to see a shift in the nutrition field and the wider public perception after Ancel Keys’ unbased theory held the world in thrall for more than half a century.
Glyphosate, a broad spectrum weed killer and the world’s most widely used agrochemical, has been in the headlines recently. Within the last six months, two men in the US have been awarded US $78M and US $80M respectively, for glyphosate’s deemed role in the development of their non-Hodgkins lymphoma. This is in the wake of 2015 findings from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate is a probably carcinogen, which caused quite a stir when it was announced.
Naysayers and skeptics in the scientific community cited IARC’s own admission that their assessment was based on limited evidence of glyphosates effects on humans specifically, arguing that glyphosate was perfectly safe for continued use. What those scientists neglected to say was why there is limited evidence upon which the finding had been based — namely because a large portion of research done on its efficacy and safety is conducted or funded by the manufacturers themselves, some of which the first court trial last year revealed to be fabricated. Not to mention the difficulty of conducting double-blind, controlled experiments of glyphosate effects on humans. Aside from the challenge of getting study participants, it’s unlikely that an ethics committee would ever approve such a study.
Formulation is also another confounding factor — typical glyphosate formulations have been shown to have as much as 100 times greater efficacy than glyphosate as an isolated substance due to the properties of surfactants that they contain. Yet much of the research on glyphosate has been exactly that — glyphosate-based, rather than formulation based. There’s no doubt that more than a small portion of controversy around glyphosate research stems from controversial relationships between industry and researchers. The question is, when will industry and researchers concede the point (other than in private, internal company emails)?
Meanwhile, there have been calls for a revision of the IARC process, with experts, media and the industry accusing IARC of “cherry picking” and selectively treating evidence to reach a foregone conclusion. Perhaps it’s a bit of a case of “tit for tat” on the part of IARC, which is clearly unacceptable — though perhaps it also serves to level the playing field a little.
Typically, it’s the media that unashamedly extrapolates and over-exaggerates the results of scientific studies. Scientists who do the same thing?It’s not something that we expect, but it clearly happens, sometimes for egotistical and idealogical reasons, sometimes because there’s money and careers tied up in research findings.
Does that mean that we should discount science as a bogus institution? Certainly not. It means that we should be prepared to read more deeply into problems and absorb all the information that is shared with us by scientists — including me — with a critical eye and a healthy pinch of salt. The truth is for each of us to find.
Sensational Science
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