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Some investigative reporting on the Science Media Center. Mentions ME/CFS. Quite a bit of interesting info in the full article.
U.S. R.T.K. said:Does Science Media Centre Promote Corporate Views of Science?
Posted on July 20, 2017 by Stacy Malkan
https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/science-media-centre/
The Science Media Centre (SMC) is a nonprofit PR agency started in the UK that gets its largest block of funding from industry groups. Current and past funders include Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto, Coca-Cola and food and chemical industry trade groups, as well as media groups, government agencies, foundations and universities. The SMC model is spreading around the world and has been influential in shaping media coverage of science, sometimes in ways that downplay the risks of controversial products or technologies.
This fact sheet describes SMC history, philosophy, funding model, tactics and reports from critics who have said SMC offers pro-industry science views, a charge SMC denies.
U.S. R.T.K. said:Discrediting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
A 2013 paper by Malcolm Hopper, Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland, UK, reported evidence that SMC promoted the views of certain psychiatrists while ignoring other evidence that contradicted the psychiatrists’ theory, in an effort to discredit people with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
“For those not blinded by the SMC’s dazzling aura, it appears that its covert purpose is to ensure that journalists and the media report scientific and medical matters only in a way that conforms to government and industry’s ‘policy’ on the issues in question.”
“An organisation which behaves in such a blatantly unscientific way can have no legitimate claim to represent science.”