By John Tierney
Posted: Monday, November 5, 2007

ARTICLES
Publication Date: November 5, 2007

This item, which includes Dr. Elizabeth Whelan's defense of ACSH, appears in its entirety on John Tierney's TierneyLab science blog at NYTimes.com:

During the trans-fat debate here, readers criticized me for quoting the American Council on Science and Health, arguing that it wasn’t a credible source and that I should have pointed out it receives donations from corporations. Some accused it of not doing peer-reviewed research and getting most of its money from corporations, and said they'd trust the Harvard School of Public Health over ACSH any day.

The reason I cited the report is that I've found ACSH to be one of the most reliable debunkers of junk-science health scares over the past few decades. The reason I didn’t mention where it gets its money comes is that it didn’t seem to me to more significant in this case than where the researchers at Harvard and other voices in this debate got their money. But now that accusations have been made, I’d like to deal with them. You read a critical analysis of ACSH here at SourceWatch. And here's a response to the readers' criticism from Elizabeth Whelan, the president of ACSH:

I would like to respond briefly to wildly off-base remarks made by some of the commenters.

 

See also: Jeff Stier's posted comment on the fight, plus ACSH's full report on Trans Fatty Acids and Heart Disease.