“Strong-Willed Scientists Overstated the Significance of Their Studies”

The New York Times seems open to the idea that strong-willed scientists might overstate their results in science food studies. I wonder if The New York Times would be open to the same possibility in science climate studies?

(p. A19) For two generations, Americans ate fewer eggs and other animal products because policy makers told them that fat and cholesterol were bad for their health. Now both dogmas have been debunked in quick succession.
. . .
Epidemiological data can be used to suggest hypotheses but not to prove them.
Instead of accepting that this evidence was inadequate to give sound advice, strong-willed scientists overstated the significance of their studies.
Much of the epidemiological data underpinning the government’s dietary advice comes from studies run by Harvard’s school of public health. In 2011, directors of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences analyzed many of Harvard’s most important findings and found that they could not be reproduced in clinical trials.
It’s no surprise that longstanding nutritional guidelines are now being challenged.
In 2013, government advice to reduce salt intake (which remains in the current report) was contradicted by an authoritative Institute of Medicine study. And several recent meta-analyses have cast serious doubt on whether saturated fats are linked to heart disease, as the dietary guidelines continue to assert.
Uncertain science should no longer guide our nutrition policy. Indeed, cutting fat and cholesterol, as Americans have conscientiously done, may have even worsened our health.

For the full commentary, see:
NINA TEICHOLZ. “The Government’s Bad Diet Advice.” The New York Times (Sat., FEB. 21, 2015): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date FEB. 20, 2015.)

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