1. Tech Times seeks to inject some science into police violence discussions and uses our work to do it. In the ongoing debate over gun ownership, a lot of papers are produced but not all of them make sense. "Virtual lives lost" is one such metric. Like virtual water, virtual money, and virtual emissions, pretend assets can't be utilized. If someone dies young, is is correct to assume they will live to be 80? Not really, which is why average life expectancy is a flawed notion. And if a paper is publicized in the political The Guardian, even more suspicion is warranted. To offset their bias, John Diente used the non-partisan work of Dr. Alex Berezow, who showed the paper Guardian gushed about was instead epidemiological malpractice.
2. In our newest introduction video, we tell people it's safe to go into the kitchen again. That goes for the wine cellar also. Though the usual media-driven scaremongering took the nation by storm again, this time for wine and courtesy of once serious journal The Lancet, Cat Wollinsky in Vinepair showed it was all nonsense and used our work to do it.
As we often are forced to tell people in the modern world of woo-driven, NIEHS Dr. Linda Birnbaum-perpetuated food and chemical hysteria, if you don't like an epidemiology paper, wait a week and it will change.
3. Dr. Julianna LeMieux was in Washington, DC to discuss food and drug laws. During the meeting, she met someone who was pro-science. No surprise there. But it was someone from Center for Science in the Public Interest. Maybe I should repeat that. CSPI and also pro-science. It stunned the rest of us to hear it also, especially coming from the litigation group who spent decades manufacturing hype that coffee causes breast cancer so they could try and sue over it. But Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., is now retired, so they are likely going to enter this century. And be a lot less sexist than he was. We were so intrigued we had to look up Attorney Greg Jaffe and, sure enough, he is pro-science. It was easy to confirm that because Sourcewatch has a Wiki entry smearing him. Former Clinton attorney Lisa Graves hates pro-science people even more than she hates Republicans, which is why he made the list despite being at political ally CSPI. And her hatred of science is probably why she made sure another political ally, the anti-food anti-vaccine pro-Russia Today organization Organic Consumers Association smears him too. All they are missing is Alternet and Mother Jones and Jaffe will know he has really arrived.
4. Pot...for dogs. It's not just a funny plot waypoint in "Dude, Where's My Car?" the same people who believe in homeopathy for animals and that vaccines will prevent their child from getting into Harvard School of Public Health think if it makes them mellow, it must be good for pets. Because they think dogs are just little people.
In DESERT magazine, Kristin Scharkey does what more journalists should do, and asks the awkward questions when government and advocates are rushing to rationalize a pastime. I have no issue with marijuana, other than that people should not inhale smoke. Though it was never my thing, always thought it was a government War on Fun, as ridiculous as banning alcohol or video games, so advocates can spare me the hate mail about their recreational choice. It isn't for dogs. As Dr. Berezow is quoted, “They don’t eat vegetables, they don’t eat chocolate, and they don’t smoke pot because they’re not tiny humans, so we shouldn’t treat them that way.”
5. Dr. Jamie Wells met with Trump’s senior health policy advisor Katy French Talento to discuss the First Lady's "Be Best" initiative and the importance of an all-hands-on-deck approach to the opioid issue. She also attended The Committee on Small Business meeting “Ready, Willing, and Able to Work: How Small Businesses Empower People with Developmental Disabilities” and had lunch with Katherine Tai, Chief Trade Counsel on Ways and Means at the US House of Representatives.
And she represented us at the International Women's Forum Women LEAD Summit.
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On the left, Dr. Wells and IWF Senior Policy Analyst Patrice Lee Onwuka. On the right, Dr. Wells with Julie Gunlock, director of the IWF Culture of Alarmism project.
6. Congratulations to Nan Hayworth, M.D., on being named to the President's Council on Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition. She will be a needed evidence-based counterpoint to Dr. Oz, one of the Four Horsemen of the Alternative (the others are Null, Weil and Chopra, if you are curious) who we were surprised to see is still on television, three years after we convinced half his audience and 100 percent of pro-science Americans he is selling whatever sponsors pay him to sell and mixing some anti-agriculture nonsense in there to round things out.
