See how a professor of communication takes down a couple of fear-mongering journos

We have covered the breathless and fact-challenged campaign against BPA and the bravura work done by STATS.org to expose it. The STATS report took no prisoners in its attack on BPA doom profiteer scientist Fred vom Saal, along with the journos—Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger—who used Freddie as essentially their sole source in their 30,000 word screed against the compound.

The STATS report, along with BPA getting essentially a clean bill of health from the State of California and the Canadian government drove Susanne and Meg into full damage control mode. They embarked on an investigation of STATS and report author Trevor Butterworth, publishing their findings on August 22.

The publishing of their findings betrays a rather interesting twist. Nothing is mentioned in the August 22nd article that would contradict a single thing stated in the STATS report. Thus, after expending 30,000 words of precious journalistic real estate on an attack on BPA, Kissinger and Rust choose to spend NONE in defending their work. Instead, they resort to foolish ad hominem attacks.

However, they picked on the wrong group. Please read STATS' reply, written by Bob Lichter, Professor of Communication at George Mason University, and Director of STATS.

I can further add that Meg and Susanne even tried to investigate me, and in a series of e-mails reflected not only petulance, but real ignorance on BPA, beyond what they were fed by Freddie. I was encouraged, though, when Meg said she would "look into" Steven Arnold's scientific fraud (discussed here).

Surely, the duo should have examined other sources, but they could have been overwhelmed by vom Saal's relentless cheerleading for his own pathetic scientific work—behavior that is not particularly common in academia. Sadly, typical of the endocrine disruptor gang, though, he is absolutely shameless. 

I suspect that many in the ED gang are fully aware how bad their science is, but justify it since their cause is so righteous (in their eyes at least).  And with so many journals looking for stuff to publish...Let's just say that Cell is about the only good one left.

Perhaps the STATS efforts will shine much needed light on this matter.