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Corruption in Science News Stories

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Trump administration puts gag order on Dept. of Agriculture researchers
2017-01-24, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2017-01-30 00:34:03
http://www.sfgate.com/local/politics/article/Trump-administration-in-gag-orde...

The Trump administration is putting a gag on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its 2,000 scientists, with an order that forbids the public sharing of information and scientific papers produced by the USDA's main research arm. "Starting immediately and until further notice, the Agricultural Research Service will not release any public-facing documents," Sharon Drumm, chief of staff at ARS, wrote in a department-wide email. "This includes but is not limited to news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds and social media content," Drumm wrote. The Department of Agriculture gag comes at the same time as an administration-imposed media blackout at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Department of Agriculture is not in the vortex of environmental controversy, although ... its research does include genetically modified foods - subject to a nationwide labeling battle - as well as the impact of pesticides.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption and climate change.


Donald Trump's White House 'gags' at least three US government agencies including the EPA
2017-01-25, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2017-01-30 00:31:24
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-white-house-gag...

Donald Trumps administration has appeared to ban at least three Government agencies from speaking to journalists, providing documents to the public or even tweeting. Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency staff are all reportedly subject to gagging orders. As well as the prohibition of social media posts ... the EPA has been ordered to freeze all grants, contracts and other agreements until further notice. A memo sent to EPA staff said there should be no press releases sent to external audiences and that no social media will be going out. The letter ... also says that a digital strategist will be drafted in to oversee the agencys social media and that existing, individually controlled social-media accounts may become more centrally controlled. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ... employees were told not to publish any new documents or correspondence in any public forum, including the Federal Register, and not to discuss any documents or rules with public officials until it is reviewed by the administration. Staff at the USDAs Agricultural Research Service received a memo on Monday telling them not to provide any documents to the public including press releases and social media. The email told employees, including about 2,000 staff scientists, that starting immediately and until further notice, they could not release any documents or post on social media.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and mass media manipulation.


Mice can be turned into Walking Dead-style zombie killers, scientists discover
2017-01-13, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2017-01-16 14:02:25
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mice-lab-rats-walking-dead-zombie-k...

Mice were turned into Walking Dead-style zombie killers by turning on a light that activated specific brain cells associated with hunting, scientists have revealed. The researchers found that firing one set of neurons prompted the mouse to pursue its prey, while doing the same to another set caused the animal to bite and kill its target. The effect was so strong that the otherwise perfectly ordinary creature would attack anything nearby, such as sticks or bottle caps, as well as more normal prey like crickets. A technique called optogenetics ... allowed [scientists] to activate specific brain cells using a laser. So one minute the mice would be behaving normally, but as soon as the laser was turned on they would aggressively attack whatever was around them. The effect was stronger in mice that were hungry, and they also did not attack other mice in the cage. Professor Ivan de Araujo, of Yale University School of Medicine, who took part in the research, said ... The system is not just generalised aggression. It seems to be related to the animals interest in obtaining food. he said. However, the effect was so powerful that the mice would attack inedible objects. The paper in Cell explained: When a non-edible item was placed in the cage, laser activation caused the otherwise indifferent mice to immediately ... seize the object, which was then held with the forepaws and bitten. Behaviour was interrupted immediately upon laser deactivation." It said the mice were never seen to attack inanimate objects unless the laser was used.

Note: Remember that secret military projects are often 10 to 20 years of anything being publicly announced. How far have they gone with this? Are soldier secretly being subjected to this technology? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing major media articles on secret government mind control programs.


ExxonMobil fires back at AG Maura Healey with own suit
2016-12-05, Boston Globe
Posted: 2016-12-19 15:29:58
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/12/04/mass-exxonmobil-tangle-court-over...

Law enforcement officials announced last spring that they were pursuing fraud investigations against the worlds largest oil company, ExxonMobil. Fossil fuel companies ... deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change, [Attorney General Maura] Healey said at the time. Now those words are being used against Healey, in a lawsuit filed by ExxonMobil. In a stunning offense-is-the-best-defense legal strategy, the company is ... saying the Massachusetts Democrats investigation violates their free speech and other constitutional rights. In its legal battle to shut down her investigation, ExxonMobil has demanded that she testify about her efforts and provide documents from her office. Healey contends the corporate response is unprecedented: Not only is [ExxonMobil] refusing to comply, it is demanding an investigation of the investigating agency. They took the tack of trying to shut down this investigation by suing us, she said. When Healey issued subpoenas seeking ExxonMobils documents on climate change dating to the 1970s, she was abusing the power of government to silence a speaker she disfavors, lawyers for ExxonMobil wrote in their June lawsuit against her, alleging a violation of the companys rights. And they criticized the stories that prompted the investigation: Reports published in 2015 ... suggested ExxonMobil had encouraged climate change confusion for years, despite its own research documenting the risks.

Note: Read more on Exxon Mobile's climate change deceptions. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on global warming and corporate corruption.


How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat
2016-09-12, New York Times
Posted: 2016-12-19 15:26:21
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-bla...

The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show. The internal sugar industry documents ... published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of todays dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry. A trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation ... paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in todays dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat. The food industry has continued to influence nutrition science. For many decades, health officials encouraged Americans to reduce their fat intake, which led many people to consume low-fat, high-sugar foods that some experts now blame for fueling the obesity crisis. Today, the saturated fat warnings remain a cornerstone of the governments dietary guidelines, though in recent years the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization and other health authorities have also begun to warn that too much added sugar may increase cardiovascular disease risk.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in science and in the food system.


Nutrition for sale: How Kellogg worked with 'independent experts' to tout cereal
2016-11-21, Chicago Tribune/Associated Press
Posted: 2016-12-19 15:24:18
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-kellogg-independent-experts-cereal-...

On its website, Kellogg touted a distinguished-sounding "Breakfast Council" of "independent experts" who helped guide its nutritional efforts. Nowhere did it say this: The maker of Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes paid the experts and fed them talking points. The company paid the experts an average of $13,000 a year, prohibited them from offering media services for products "competitive or negative to cereal" and required them to engage in "nutrition influencer outreach" on social media or with colleagues, and report back on their efforts. For Kellogg, the breakfast council - in existence between 2011 and this year - deftly blurred the lines between cereal promotion and impartial nutrition guidance. The company used the council to teach a continuing education class for dietitians, publish an academic paper on breakfast, and try to influence the government's dietary guidelines. One of the breakfast council's most notable achievements was publishing a paper defining a "quality breakfast" in a nutrition journal. Kellogg touted the paper in its newsletter as being written by "our independent nutrition experts." Dietitians could earn continuing education credits from the publisher for taking a quiz about the paper. Kellogg didn't describe its own role in overseeing editing and providing feedback, such as asking for the removal of a line saying a recommendation that added sugar be limited to 25 percent of calories might be "too high."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in science and in the food system.


Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops
2016-10-29, New York Times
Posted: 2016-11-21 15:30:39
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html

Genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides. The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the worlds growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides. Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents ... shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise. The United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields - food per acre - when measured against Western Europe. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found that there was little evidence that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops. At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States. And the United States has fallen behind Europes biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides. Pesticides are toxic by design ... and have been linked to developmental delays and cancer. The same companies make and sell both the genetically modified plants and the poisons.

Note: Explore over 40 scientific studies that have demonstrated the health dangers of GM foods. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and the GMO controversy.


Placebos Help Kids With Migraines as Well as Drugs Do
2016-10-28, NBC News
Posted: 2016-11-21 15:18:17
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/placebos-help-kids-migraines-well-d...

Sugar pills worked as well at preventing kids' migraines as two commonly used headache medicines, but had fewer side effects, in a study that may lead doctors to rethink how they treat a common ailment in children and teens. It's the first rigorous head-to-head test in kids of two generic prescription drugs also used for adults' migraines: topiramate, an anti-seizure medicine, and amitriptyline, an anti-depressant. The idea was to see if either drug could reduce by half the number of days kids had migraines over a month's time. Both drugs worked that well - but so did placebo sugar pills. The results "really challenge what is typical practice today by headache specialists," said study author Scott Powers, a psychologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. "The fact that it shows that two of the most commonly used medications are no more effective than a placebo and have adverse effects makes a very clear statement," said Dr. Leon Epstein, neurology chief at Ann & Robert Lurie H. Children's Hospital of Chicago. The only government-approved migraine medication for kids is topiramate. Side effects from the drugs [included] fatigue, dry mouth and forgetfulness. Kids on topiramate also had tingling sensations in their hands, arms, legs or feet. There was one suicide attempt in the topiramate group, another known side-effect of that drug. The side effects were not unexpected, but given the risks, the results suggest the drugs shouldn't be "first-line prevention treatments" for kids' migraines, Powers said.

Note: This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For more, see this mercola.com article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.


Is a "cocktail" of "safe" pesticides killing off bee colonies?
2016-10-10, CBS News
Posted: 2016-11-21 15:15:30
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/safe-pesticides-killing-off-bee-colonies/

Bee colonies have been dying off in high numbers, with suspicion falling on agricultural pesticides like herbicides and fungicides, as main factors behind the declines. Now, a new study out of the University of Maryland is the first to look at how a cocktail of all of various pesticides could be impacting bee colonies over time. Our results fly in the face of one of the basic tenets of toxicology: that the dose makes the poison, study senior author Dennis van Engelsdorp, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, said. We found that the number of different compounds was highly predictive of colony death, which suggests that the addition of more compounds somehow overwhelms the bees ability to detoxify themselves. The study looked at 91 honey bee colonies that were owned by three migratory commercial beekeepers over one farming season. The research team examined 93 pesticide compounds that were found in the colonies throughout the season. These compounds were found building up in the bees wax in processed pollen, [as well as] in the bodies of nurse bees. The researchers ... measured three key things: the total number of pesticides, the total number of pesticides that were above a minimum level of toxicity, and each colonys hazard quotient, which factors in the hazard posed by the total toxicity of all pesticides present in the colony. What did the researchers find? Unfortunately, all three measures corresponded with a higher probability of colony death or the loss of the queen bee.

Note: This study was published in Nature Scientific Reports, and found that some compounds regarded as "bee-safe" could be a major contributors to honey bee colony losses. Prior to this, neonicotinoid pesticides were found to be connected to colony collapse disorder. Bayer, a major manufacturer of this pesticide, attempted to cover up the connection between its products and the massive die off of bees.


SPIDER Bites CDC
2016-10-17, Huffington Post
Posted: 2016-11-07 18:48:38
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/spider-bites-cdc-ethics-c_b_125250...

Concerns about the inner workings of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been mounting in recent months amid disclosures of cozy corporate alliances. Now a group of more than a dozen senior scientists have reportedly lodged an ethics complaint alleging the federal agency is being influenced by corporate and political interests in ways that short-change taxpayers. A group calling itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research, or CDC SPIDER, put a list of complaints in writing in a letter to the CDC Chief of Staff and provided a copy of the letter to [a] public watchdog organization. The members of the group have elected to file the complaint anonymously for fear of retribution. It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests... and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most, is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception, the letter states. The complaint cites among other things a cover up of the poor performance of a womens health program called ... WISEWOMAN. The complaint alleges there was a coordinated effort within the CDC to misrepresent data given to Congress. Definitions were changed and data cooked to make the results look better than they were, the complaint states. And the complaint cites as troubling the ties between soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co. ... and two high-ranking CDC officials.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health.


HIV spread earlier than believed; Patient 0 a myth, study says
2016-10-26, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2016-11-07 18:33:31
http://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/New-study-traces-spread-of-HIV-affi...

HIV likely landed in the United States a full decade before the first AIDS reports made headlines, according to a report released Wednesday that also strongly dismisses the long-held myth that a single man, a flight attendant notoriously known as Patient Zero, was responsible for the domestic epidemic. The report, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, traces the lineage of HIV from Africa to Haiti to New York and, finally, San Francisco. The virus seems to have arrived in New York around 1971, and in San Francisco five years later. By the time doctors were reporting the first AIDS cases in 1981, the virus would have been deeply embedded in cities all over the country. The fact that HIV predated those first AIDS reports - and that the so-called Patient Zero could not have been responsible for the epidemic - has long been known by AIDS researchers. But the new paper ... provides perhaps the most detailed genetic history of the virus geographic movement. The new study, when coupled with previous work, gives a fairly clear picture of HIVs global travel, said co-author Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona at Tucson. He said studies suggest the virus moved from chimpanzees to humans in the early 20th century, but languished in rural villages for decades before passing into Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. From Kinshasa it may have spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and finally moved to the Caribbean, including Haiti, in the mid-1960s.

Note: Watch this astounding 10-minute video where one of the world's leading vaccine experts says that AIDS was imported through "wild viruses" in vaccines. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources.


How the FDA Manipulates the Media
2016-10-01, Scientific American
Posted: 2016-10-23 16:33:31
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-fda-manipulates-the-media/

It was a faustian bargainand it certainly made editors at National Public Radio squirm. The deal was this: NPR, along with a select group of media outlets, would get a briefing about an upcoming announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a day before anyone else. But in exchange for the scoop, NPR would have to abandon its reportorial independence. The FDA would dictate whom NPR's reporter could and couldn't interview. My editors are uncomfortable with the condition that we cannot seek reaction, NPR reporter Rob Stein wrote back to the government officials offering the deal. Stein asked for a little bit of leeway to do some independent reporting but was turned down flat. Take the deal or leave it. NPR took the deal along with reporters from more than a dozen other top-tier media organizations, including CBS, NBC, CNN, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. This kind of deal offered by the FDA - known as a close-hold embargo - is an increasingly important tool used by scientific and government agencies to control the behavior of the science press. By using close-hold embargoes and other methods, the FDA, like other sources of scientific information, are gaining control of journalists who are supposed to keep an eye on those institutions. The watchdogs are being turned into lapdogs. It is hard to tell when a close-hold embargo is afoot because, by its very nature, it is a secret.

Note: And to see how the media is censored by big money and a corrupt judicial system, watch this incredible video of two crack reporters who had their major investigation into a public health threat shut down. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in science and the manipulation of public perception.


Pesticide manufacturers' own tests reveal serious harm to honeybees
2016-09-22, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-10-10 15:30:16
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/22/pesticide-manufacturers-o...

Unpublished field trials by pesticide manufacturers show their products cause serious harm to honeybees at high levels, leading to calls from senior scientists for the companies to end the secrecy which cloaks much of their research. The research, conducted by Syngenta and Bayer on their neonicotinoid insecticides, were submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency and obtained by Greenpeace after a freedom of information request. Neonicotinoids are the worlds most widely used insecticides and there is clear scientific evidence that they harm bees at the levels found in fields. Neonicotinoids were banned from use on flowering crops in the EU in 2013, despite UK opposition. The newly revealed studies show Syngentas thiamethoxam and Bayers clothianidin seriously harmed colonies at high doses, but did not find significant effects below concentrations of 50 parts per billion (ppb) and 40ppb respectively. Such levels can sometimes be found in fields. However, scientists said all such research should be made public. It is hard to see why the companies dont make these kinds of studies available, said Prof Dave Goulson, at the University of Sussex. It does seem a little shady to do ... the very studies the companies say are the most important ones - and then not tell people what they find. Syngenta had told Greenpeace in August that none of the studies Syngenta has undertaken or commissioned for use by regulatory agencies have shown damages to the health of bee colonies. Goulson said: That clearly contradicts their own study.

Note: CNN News reported in 2010 that Bayer covered up the link between its products and massive bee die-offs. Read more about how these pesticides sicken bees and harm food crops. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing food system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


UCSF-led study details sugar industrys attempt to shape science
2016-09-12, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2016-09-25 23:16:31
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/UCSF-led-study-details-sugar-industry-...

UCSF researchers believe they have uncovered a decades-old effort by the sugar industry to exonerate sugar as a dietary culprit for heart disease and shift the blame onto fat and cholesterol. In a paper published in Mondays JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers reveal a scheme in which the sugar industrys main trade group paid two Harvard scientists to conduct a literature review in the mid-1960s that challenged emerging evidence linking sugar consumption to risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The Harvard scientists concluded there was no doubt that reducing dietary cholesterol and substituting polyunsaturated fat for saturated fat would prevent heart disease. Such recommendations helped persuade Americans to replace their butter with margarine and eat fat-free cookies and other sugar-laden treats. We have been indoctrinated in this belief that if we dont eat a low-fat diet, well die of the No. 1 killer disease, said co-author Laura Schmidt, professor of health policy at UCSF School of Medicine. Now weve learned the sugar industry paid off Harvard to tell us that. They showed that the Sugar Research Foundation, which is now known as the Sugar Association, paid Fredrick Stare and fellow faculty member D. Mark Hegsted the equivalent of about $50,000 in 2016 dollars to write a heavily critical review of studies that linked sucrose to heart disease. Their reviews were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1967.

Note: For more on how the sugar industry conspired against public health, see this Time magazine article. For even more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing health news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.


Brazil asks whether Zika acts alone to cause birth defects
2016-07-25, Nature
Posted: 2016-08-22 12:38:36
http://www.nature.com/news/brazil-asks-whether-zika-acts-alone-to-cause-birth...

Government researchers in Brazil are set to explore the country's peculiar distribution of Zika-linked microcephaly - babies born with abnormally small heads. Zika virus has spread throughout Brazil, but extremely high rates of microcephaly have been reported only in the country's northeast. Although evidence suggests that Zika can cause microcephaly, the clustering pattern hints that other environmental, socio-economic or biological factors could be at play. We suspect that something more than Zika virus is causing the high intensity and severity of cases, says Fatima Marinho, director of information and health analysis at Brazils ministry of health. If that turns out to be true, it could change researchers' assessment of the risk that Zika poses. Zika was discovered in 1947 and hadnt been implicated in birth defects until now. The northeast was where the first reported surge in microcephaly cases in Brazil began a year ago. Health officials had expected that they would later see the same high rates in other parts of the country. But as of 20 July, almost 90% of the 1,709 confirmed cases of congenital microcephaly or birth defects of the central nervous system reported in Brazil since last November were in a relatively small area ... about the size of the United Kingdom, whereas Brazil is almost as large as the United States. There are many hypotheses about what might be going on. Marinho says that her team's data, submitted for publication, hint that socio-economic factors might be involved.

Note: The cluster of microcephaly cases in Brazil was reported in February to predate the latest Zika outbreak. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing Zika virus news articles from reliable major media sources.


Exclusive: Controversial US scientist creates deadly new flu strain for pandemic research
2014-06-30, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-08-14 22:29:32
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-controversial-us-scientis...

A controversial scientist who carried out provocative research on making influenza viruses more infectious has completed his most dangerous experiment to date by deliberately creating a pandemic strain of flu that can evade the human immune system. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has genetically manipulated the 2009 strain of pandemic flu in order for it to escape the control of the immune systems neutralising antibodies, effectively making the human population defenceless against its reemergence. Most of the world today has developed some level of immunity to the 2009 pandemic flu virus. However ... Professor Kawaoka intentionally set out to see if it was possible to convert it to a pre-pandemic state in order to analyse the genetic changes involved. Professor Kawaokas work had been cleared by Wisconsins Institutional Biosafety Committee, but some members of the committee were not informed about details of the antibody study ... and have voiced concerns about the direction, oversight and safety of his overall research on flu viruses. I have met Professor Kawaoka in committee and have heard his research presentations and honestly it was not re-assuring, said Professor Tom Jeffries, a dissenting member of the 17-person biosafety committee. This is the first time that someone has taken a strain of influenza virus, called H1N1, known to have caused a global epidemic, in other words a pandemic, and deliberately mutated it many times over.


Piltdown Man: Scientists finally get to the bottom of notorious scientific forgery
2016-08-11, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2016-08-14 22:06:20
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0811/Piltdown-Man-Scientists-finally-ge...

Piltdown Man was heralded as the missing link, connecting humans to their ape ancestors. Discovered in England in 1912, the fossils were exactly what British paleontologists were hoping to find. Newspapers proclaimed: "Missing Link Found - Darwin's Theory Proved." In 1953, scientists concluded that Piltdown Man was an elaborate fraud, compiled of pieces of a human skull and orangutan jaw and teeth. Now ... scientists have definitively narrowed the blame down to just one person: Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist and fossil collector. The shocking thing was how many people accepted it because it fell right into their belief system, [said] David Begun, a paleoanthropologist professor at the University of Toronto. Dawson put together this fraudulent fossil to fit the preconceptions of the time." Anthropologists hadn't pinned down where humans first arose, so it was still possible to link them back to Europe. More recent discoveries of human ancestors have immediately raised red flags because they upended people's expectations, including the enigmatic "hobbit" from Indonesia, and strange, small human ancestors in the Rising Star cave in South Africa. But those excavations were carefully documented and the specimens were verified as real. In contrast, the greatest scientific fraud in history fit exactly what scientists were looking for. Because it confirmed the biases of the time, the Piltdown Man closed people's eyes to the new things there were to discover.

Note: Scientists all too often herald discoveries which confirm their theories without carefully checking the facts. The carefully researched book "Forbidden Archeology" raises serious questions about the origins of the human race. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing archeology and history news articles from reliable major media sources.


Dear "Skeptics," Bash Homeopathy and Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More
2016-05-16, Scientific American
Posted: 2016-08-08 19:02:39
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dear-skeptics-bash-homeopathy...

Im a science journalist. That keeps me busy, because, as you know, most peer-reviewed scientific claims are wrong. So Im a skeptic, but with a small s, not capital S. The Science Delusion is common among Capital-S Skeptics. You dont apply your skepticism equally. You are extremely critical of belief in God, ghosts, heaven, ESP, astrology, homeopathy and Bigfoot. Meanwhile, you neglect [many] dubious and even harmful claims promoted by major scientists and institutions. Lets take a look at ... mainstream medicine. Over the past half-century, physicians and hospitals have introduced increasingly sophisticated, expensive tests. They assure us that early detection of disease will lead to better health. But tests often do more harm than good. For every woman whose life is extended because a mammogram detected a tumor, up to 33 receive unnecessary treatment, including biopsies, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. For men diagnosed with prostate cancer after a PSA test, the ratio is 47 to one. Similar data are emerging on colonoscopies and other tests. Mental-health care suffers from similar problems. The biological theory that really drives me nuts is the deep-roots theory of war. According to the theory, lethal group violence is in our genes. But the evidence is overwhelming that war was a cultural innovation. I hate the deep-roots theory not only because its wrong, but also because it encourages fatalism toward war. War is our most urgent problem.

Note: The above was written by John Horgan, director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing science corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Insecticide Can Cut Bee Sperm by Nearly 40 Percent, Study Finds
2016-07-28, New York Times
Posted: 2016-07-31 20:07:19
"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/science/neonicotinoid-insecticide-bee-sper...

A new study of male honeybees shows that two insecticides, banned in some European nations but still used in the United States, can significantly reduce the bees ability to reproduce. The study ... found that thiamethoxam and clothianidin, two chemicals from the neonicotinoid family of insecticides, reduce living sperm in male honeybees, called drones, by almost 40 percent. The effects of pesticides on honeybee populations are considered one culprit among several factors causing periodic declines. Neonicotinoids have been shown by other studies to harm the health of individual bees and the reproductive ability of female insects. The new study expanded on the dangers of the pesticides for males. The two neonicotinoids used in the study were banned in the European Union in 2013, but are used on an industrial scale in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency ... will release risk assessments for the two chemicals, as well as another neonicotinoid, dinotefuran, in December. A significant amount of the global food supply is made up of plants that require pollinators like bees to survive. Any widespread threat to bees also constitutes a greater ecological threat. Beekeepers in the United States lost 44 percent of their honeybee colonies from April 2015 to April 2016, according to an annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership. The loss was 3.5 percent greater than that found from 2014 to 2015, when beekeepers lost 40.6 percent of colonies.

Note: The findings of US government scientists have been systematically suppressed when they highlight the link between pesticides and mass animal deaths.


Last US Medical School That Used Live Animals In Teaching Surgery Ends Practice
2016-07-06, Huffington Post
Posted: 2016-07-17 19:54:28
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/live-animals-pigs-will-not-be-used-in-med...

Cats, dogs and pigs will no longer be guinea pigs. Late last month, the last medical school in the U.S. and Canada to use live animals to teach surgical skills to students - the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga - announced it would cease the practice. In an email sent to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which has fought the practice for years, Robert C. Fore, the interim dean for the medical school at UT, wrote that effective immediately the college will no longer use live pigs to teach surgical skills to students. Instead they will use simulators of human bodies that can bleed, breathe, blink and have lifelike organs and skin. Its a watershed moment, John Pippin, a retired cardiologist and director of academic affairs for PCRM, told Washington Post. For anyone who went to medical school in years past it was a rite of passage, often a disturbing rite of passage to use a dog or cat or another animal in medical courses. Students were instructed to use the animals to practice surgical procedures or inject them with various drugs to monitor responses. After being used for such training procedures, the animals were killed. UTs ban of using live animals follows Johns Hopkins May 18 announcement that they would stop the practice because almost all medical schools have stopped using live animals and that the experience is not essential.

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