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science writing – Life as an Extreme Sport
Life as an Extreme Sport

Another Kind of Fake News: Covert Marketing As Academic Research

Fake news and bad reporting (faithless journalism, perhaps) have been in the news pretty extensively since the election, and folks are trying to detangle trust, knowledge, and facts from fake news and click-bait headlines. One topic I haven’t seen addressed much is news around science articles – oh, I see the discussion of click-bait headlines and the flipflops of EGGS GOOD/BAD/WHO KNOWS. But what I don’t see so much of is a discussion of author affiliation.

For example, the Washington Post published a Wellness article about choline last week that caught my eye. There were an awful lot of claims being made about this supposed wonder-nutrient we don’t get enough of, and reading the original article seemed like a good idea. So I did.

Now, something that might not occur to folks is a normal part of reading academic articles for me: looking at author affiliations and disclosures for conflicts-of-interest. And in this case, it didn’t take long to find one. Sure, the first and corresponding author seemed okay on the surface (a professor of nutrition at George Mason), but the second author? Oh that second author.

That second author, a Victor Fulgoni the Third, is employed by Nutrition Impact, LLC. Who are they, you ask? Well hell, I didn’t know until I looked – but that’s the point. I looked. And I found:

Based in Battle Creek, Mich., USA, Nutrition Impact has helped one client successfully complete a new health claim petition (plant sterol esters and heart disease), helped another client successfully complete a Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA) notification authorizing another new health claim (potassium and blood pressure/stroke), and helped a third client obtain a new nutrient content claim (choline).

Emphasis mine.

This, of course, calls the entire research paper regarding choline into question, because the job of the second of two authors was to make choline a noted and noticeable health claim (almost certainly a supplement company looking to goad consumers into purchases), and the Washington Post fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Is this fake news? Certainly not of the Facebook-style fake news generators, but it is a kind of fake news: it’s hiding a company agenda in the veneer of academic research, and thus eroding trust in both academic research and science/medical journalism.

VSS Post-Show: Emily Willingham, PhD

This week on Virtually Speaking Science, my guest was Dr. Emily Willingham. Emily received both her BA and PhD at the University of Texas, Austin; the former was in English and the latter in Biological Sciences.You might be seeing a pattern with my guests. Her dissertation was on the effects of atrazine and temperature on the sex development of red slider turtles; she went on to do a fellowship in pediatric urology at University of California, San Francisco.

On academic achievement alone, Emily is impressive, but she didn’t forget her English background when she wandered into science. Instead, she has written for Scientific American, The Scientist, The New York Times, Slate, and Discover; has a regular column at Forbes called The Science Consumer; and is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of DoubleX Science. firefly_shiny_nathan_fillion_t_shirtShe was a Shorty Award finalist in 2013, as well as being selected for the Open Lab 2013 best in science writing online anthology. She has been blurbed by Steve Silberman and Ed Yong, and even has her own Wikipedia page.

Basically, she is shiny.

Emily sat down to talk with me about her multidisciplinary background, writing books at a precociously young age, and the Women in Science Writing Solutions Summit that was held at MIT last weekend. As you can imagine, we managed to fit a lot into the hour, and it was a fun show. Give it a listen! Below, you’ll find links to the papers, panels, and people we discussed.With thanks to my husband Nicholas, who has not only been live-tweeting my VSS shows, but has been acting as live scribe, gathering links and information real-time.

Something I learned about when researching Emily in preparation for the interview was that, long before Ed Yong was talking about zombie parasites, Emily had written about zombie grasshoppers. Or, as I prefer to think of them, creepy worm terrorist zombie hijackers.

One of the main inspirations for the recent summit was a session at NASW 2013 titled The XX Question. You can see the video of this powerful plenary session here.

In December, Maryn McKenna and Janet Stemwedel joined Tom Levenson on Virtually Speaking Science to talk about sexual harassment, gender discrimination and science writing.

We spent a good amount of time discussing the results of a survey distributed across several professional writing communities. You can download and review the slides and data at this link.

Towards the end of the show, Emily and I started to talk about the stresses of being a feminist online, and, in particular, how it’s really necessary to know how to take care of yourself. We both referenced spoon theory (saying make sure you have your spoons); if you’re not familiar with that concept, here’s the essay that started it all.

For more information on the summit, you can head to the website, read the Storifies Maryn McKenna pulled together, and check out recaps and coverage page.

Virtually Speaking Science: Pre-show Storifies & Reading

VSSThis past weekend was the Women in Science Writing Solutions Summit 2014, an event that I had the privilege of participating in not only as an attendee, but Sunday morning break-out sessions organizer/moderator.Along with the ever-fantastic Raychelle Burks and new-to-me, but no less fantastic, Siri Carpenter. I am pleased that this evening on Virtually Speaking Science,Yes, normally I’m on-air the fourth Wednesday of the month, but this month, Tom Levenson and his guest Naomi Oreskes needed the fourth. It worked out well for everyone! one of the summit coordinators, Dr. Emily Willingham, will be joining us to to talk about the incentive for the summit, what happened over the weekend, and how the organizers intend to move forward now.

For those of you who missed the summit, there was a hashtag for Twitter, #SciWriSum14, and the fantastic Maryn McKenna not only live-tweeted during the open social media sessions, but also collected all of the relevant tweets into Storifies. I’m including them, below, as a pre-interview resource for anyone who’d like background information.

Caryl Rivers Explains the New Soft War on Women (#SciWriSum14)

Gender Imbalance in Science Writing: Data from #SciWriSum14

The Challenge and Importance of Being a Mentor… or Mentee (#SciWriSum14)

Moving Forward: Solutions and Next Steps for Science Writing (#SciWriSum14)

“Just What I Needed”: Reactions to #SciWriSum14

I’m looking forward to going over this material in more detail with Emily this evening; talk to you tonight, 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern!