Misplaced Pages

Michael Fumento

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 71.226.45.87 (talk) at 01:06, 29 January 2006 (Except for the fact that he didn't.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 01:06, 29 January 2006 by 71.226.45.87 (talk) (Except for the fact that he didn't.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Michael Fumento is an American author, journalist, and attorney who writes about science and health issues, such as obesity, the health dangers of breast implants, teen drug use, Agrarian utopianism, and AIDS.

Fumento argues that many reports of threats to society are based on bad science and egregiously misused statistics. A common theme is his claim that many liberal environmental groups have a hysterical response to most man-made chemicals. He writes that naturally occuring food chemicals are often every bit as toxic as artificial compounds, and there is no scientific reason to view natural compounds as inherently safer.

Environmental groups, he holds, will willingly accept claims that man-made compounds cause cancer, but gloss over the fact that the toxicity tests often involve quantities millions of times larger than any human being would ever ingest. Several of his articles deal with the agricultural chemical Alar, banned as a carcinogen in the United States; Fumento notes that the dosages in one Alar study were the equivalent of almost 30 thousand apples a day for life . In his view, it is impossible to test megadoses of chemicals on mice or rats and extrapolate the results to conclusions about small doses on humans. Fumento's critics counter that such extrapolation is well supported by existing evidence, and the only practical testing method for many toxic chemicals. Researchers remain divided on the utility of such tests and on the safety of Alar in particular.

Fumento describes himself as a political conservative. He has has drawn criticism from liberal groups for his views on Gulf War Syndrome, and for his 1990s writings which stated that the threat of AIDS to the heterosexual population was greatly overstated. He promotes a position of "skepticism" towards claims that man-made chemicals cause cancer in humans. However, Fumento has also been outspoken in his support of adult stem cell research and hydrogen fuel cell technology.

On January 13, 2006, Eamon Javers revealed in BusinessWeek Online that Fumento had written opinion columns promoting the biotechnology firm Monsanto without disclosing a $60,000 grant his employer, the Hudson Institute had received from the company in 1999. Scripps Howard News Service, Fumento's distributor since 2003, dropped his column in consequence.

Fumento is, or has been, a member of the following organizations:

See also: junk science, scientific skepticism

Books

  • The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS
  • Science Under Siege
  • Polluted Science
  • The Fat of the Land
  • BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World

External links

Category:
Michael Fumento Add topic