Scientific Integrity & Ethics Rush to Judgement : industry consultant too quick to give IBM a clean bill of health
January 3, 2007 The Pump Handle

by Dick Clapp  The latest issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine contains a commentary from Ken Mundt, a consultant with ENVIRON International Corporation, on “Cancer incidence among semiconductor and electronic storage device workers,” an IBM-funded study by Bender et al appearing in the same issue. Mundt says that “the study offers some reassurance that at this […]

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Scientific Integrity & Ethics Look out kid, they’re keepin’ it all hid: deceit in the epidemiology establishment
December 12, 2006 The Pump Handle

By Dick Clapp On December 1, NPR’s Living on Earth aired a segment on conflicts of interest in medical research. Host Bruce Gellerman interviewed Dr. Lennart Hardell, lead author of a recent article on conflicts of interest in cancer research published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Catherine DeAngelis, editor-in-chief of the Journal of […]

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Environmental Health A Chrome-Plated Controversy
December 7, 2006 The Pump Handle 1Comment

By David Michaels According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published last December (by Peter Waldman, 12/23/05), product defense experts at ChemRisk pulled off a particularly audacious scam on behalf of Pacific Gas and Electric, the California utility that was being sued for contaminating drinking water with hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen. ChemRisk’s scientists […]

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Scientific Integrity & Ethics Daubert: The Most Influential Supreme Court Decision You’ve Never Heard Of
December 7, 2006 The Pump Handle

By David Michaels In 1993, the US Supreme Court ruled in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that judges must act as “gatekeepers” in the courtroom, determining if the scientific evidence introduced is relevant and reliable. The Daubert decision has had tremedous impact on how science is used (and misused) in courts. That judges are […]

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Environmental Health “Let’s Debate the Science” – Taking the Tobacco Road to the Supreme Court
December 1, 2006 The Pump Handle 1Comment

By David Michaels The Bush Administration is manufacturing uncertainty about global warming, even as its allies in the carbon producing industries are abandoning it. Last week, the Washington Post’s Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin reported that “top executives at many of the nation’s largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and […]

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Scientific Integrity & Ethics Money vs. Conscience
November 27, 2006 The Pump Handle

by Liz Borkowski If you haven’t read Laurie David’s op-ed, “Science a la Joe Camel,” in yesterday’s Washington Post, I recommend clicking over to it. David was a producer of Al Gore’s climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” and reports that the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) turned down 50,000 free DVDs of that movie, […]

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