Another takedown piece on conspiracies rather than science.

I got lots of money from big ag and was never compromised in my evidence-based writings.

70 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, not a lot, but not bad, since they get cited daily, somewhere (thanks to Amy for keeping me up to date, I admit I’m somewhat humbled but also don’t care; I know what we did).

Kate Cox and Claire Brown of The Guardian write that in a windowless conference room epidemiologist Steve Wing was frantically blacking out chunks of his own research.

Wing had been working on a study looking into the impacts of industrial-scale hog operations on health for the University of North Carolina. But the state’s Pork Council had caught wind of the research, and filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) to gain access to his findings. “They went after Steve, asking him to turn over any documentation. They went directly to the university and got the lawyers to try and make him hand it over,” says Naeema Muhammad, one of Wing’s community partners.

I consulted on risk communication activities for the U.S. National Pork Board back in the 1990s or thereabouts. I received no money.

The others on the advisory committee were honest and devoted to their research.

Academia don’t pay much (and when it does, they find a reason to dump ya).

Me, I always spoke my mind and never felt any industry pressure – the only pressure I got was from green groups culminating in death threats taped to my lab door.

We had to involve the university cops, which was somewhat hilarious because a couple of grad students had bailed me out of jail or other situations (should be a grad student requirement).

Yes I took money. Yes we did good research that was published in peer-reviewed journals (and sometimes won awards). Yes, like my four Canadian daughters, those students have gone on to have remarkable and varying lives.

Look how young Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn are in this Stax Records clip.