Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona complains to members of a Congressional committee that he was muzzled by White House operatives to support political agendas.
Considering the strongly-challenged content in the 2006 report of the U.S. Surgeon General, “The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke,” what’s black in the stem cell research and teen sex kettle becomes white in the tobacco control smoking ban pot. Dr. Carmona’s bleatings before Congress fall on deaf ears for normal folks. Dr. Carmona is not arguing for scientific integrity or freedom of intellectual inquiry. He merely decries the reality that political censoring and expedient omission of facts results in his own ox being gored on occasion, too. What else could occur in a political environment where the conclusions required from scientific research are already defined by the policy agenda before the study data are gathered, let alone responsibly analyzed? Carmona confounds the relevant issue of legitimate scientific research rather than presenting meaningful insight for members of Congress.
Crying that his views were excluded on some subjects while he aggressively advances the worst of study-on-demand Junk Science and suppresses dissenting views about tobacco speaks far more to an apparent paucity of intellectual integrity than it provides meaningful information for members of Congress. Norman Kjono continues this series with discussion of another University of Washington study. The new study appears to challenge current anti-obesity dogma about soft drinks and childhood obesity. Unfortunately, the Seattle School district has been losing about $400,000 per year in lost vending revenues – while crying to taxpayers that they desperately need more money – since cancelling its contract with Coca Cola. Now we learn from the University of Washington that high-fructose corn syrup – the offending, alleged obesity-inducing substance in nefarious Coca Cola – may not contribute to obesity in the manner previously thought. Not to worry, however: some researchers also link high-fructose corn syrup to fetal dangers, just as the University of Washington linked tobacco smoke to damage to the unborn. Has earnest scientific inquiry been reduced to epidemiological crap-shoots-of-the-day in hot pursuit of grant and product revenue dollars?
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