It's been fascinating to watch journalists wrestle with the latest risk study involving bisphenol-A (BPA) the controversial ingredient in plastics that, as Jon Hamilton at NPR, notes "environmental groups have blamed for everything from ADHD to prostate disease."
And that note...
It's been fascinating to watch journalists wrestle with the latest risk study involving bisphenol-A (BPA) the controversial ingredient in plastics that, as Jon Hamilton at NPR, notes "environmental groups have blamed for everything from ADHD to prostate disease."
And that note of skepticism is not meant to suggest that BPA - which is identified by multiple studies as a notable endocrine disruptor - is without human and environmental risks. It is meant instead to point out a different kind of risk - the challenge for science writers covering a a well-promoted study about a high-profile compound in which even the researchers acknowledge that they aren't sure what their findings actually mean.
The study (paywall) was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, under the title "An Association Between Urinary Bisphenol...
Earlier this week, on my blog at Speakeasy Science, I wrote a piece criticizing the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for sloppy reporting and writing in his anti-industrial chemical columns. As it relates to science media peer review, I'm going to cross-post it here (with the kind...
Earlier this week, on my blog at Speakeasy Science, I wrote a piece criticizing the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for sloppy reporting and writing in his anti-industrial chemical columns. As it relates to science media peer review, I'm going to cross-post it here (with the kind permission of Charlie Petit and Phil Hilts).
But I also want to make a couple of points about reaction to the piece. I had expected an irate response from Kristof supporters. But almost all the comments on the post were supportive of my main point - that we need to do a much better job as journalists in communicating risk in general and chemical risk in particular. Over at Slashdot, the post generated a 400-plus comment thread titled "The...
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