Bad science

As I have been wont to say, man-made global warming has been the new cholesterol. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The new study’s conclusion shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.

Sound familiar? After cataloguing the bad or defective methodologies of the early studies (sample bias, inadequate samples, etc.) the Wall Street Journal article states:

But there was no turning back: Too much institutional energy and research money had already been spent trying to prove Dr. Keys’s hypothesis. A bias in its favor had grown so strong that the idea just started to seem like common sense. As Harvard nutrition professor Mark Hegsted said in 1977, after successfully persuading the U.S. Senate to recommend Dr. Keys’s diet for the entire nation, the question wasn’t whether Americans should change their diets, but why not? Important benefits could be expected, he argued. And the risks? “None can be identified,” he said.

In short, every attempt to get away from animal fats has led to the use of vegetable oils and other carbohydrates which, in turn, have had their own deleterious effects on human health, including obesity, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide (of all things!).

Seeing the U.S. population grow sicker and fatter while adhering to official dietary guidelines has put nutrition authorities in an awkward position. Recently, the response of many researchers has been to blame “Big Food” for bombarding Americans with sugar-laden products. No doubt these are bad for us, but it is also fair to say that the food industry has simply been responding to the dietary guidelines issued by the AHA and USDA, which have encouraged high-carbohydrate diets and until quite recently said next to nothing about the need to limit sugar.

“Seeing the economy grow weaker and people poorer under the influence of green energy policies has put warmists in an awkward position”.

Well not yet, anyway. They still are fanatically determined to save us from fossil fuels. Oh, an woodsmoke from stoves.