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Undid revision 1062590610 by Alexbrn (talk) You don't get to undo edits for no reason. And saying BLP and not explaining why is not a reason. Stop doing this or I'll report you.
Tags: Undo Reverted possible BLP issue or vandalism
somebody keeps reverting a perfectly legitimate "controversy" section. Paul Thacker is probably editing his own Wikipedia entry, a clear COI.
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[[File:Paul D. Thacker 9.22.11 (6196255522) (cropped).jpg|thumb|{{center|Paul D. Thacker}}]]

Revision as of 10:38, 29 December 2021

Paul D. Thacker

Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who specializes in science, medicine, and environmental reporting.[citation needed] He has written for Science, JAMA, Salon, The New Republic, and Environmental Science & Technology.

Education

Thacker earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and evolution, from the University of California, Davis in 1997.[1][2]

Career

In 2009, he worked on the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, investigating medical research conflicts of interest.[3] He left Congress in 2010, the day before releasing a report on ghostwriting in a medical journal run by American Heart Association.[4]

In September 2006, Thacker wrote a story for Salon that reported on political suppression of climate science within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) during the G.W. Bush presidency.[5] The agency is a part of the United States Department of Commerce. Chuck Fuqua, a Department of Commerce official, was choosing which NOAA scientists could speak to the press about the link between global warming and hurricanes. Fuqua has no training in science. One of the documents Thacker found was released by the office of Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman.[6] Based partly on Thacker’s reporting, 14 Senators launched an investigation into NOAA and NASA.

In 2006, Thacker resigned and was then fired from the journal Environmental Science & Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Thacker had written a series of exposés that a senior ACS official claimed showed an anti-industry bias.[7][8] Thacker wrote an account of this for the journal of the Society of Environmental Journalists, writing that the matter concerned an article he had written on the Weinberg Group[8] That year, Thacker won second place for the Weinberg Group article in the annual awards presented by the US Society of Environmental Journalists.[9] Later that year, Thacker’s work was profiled on Exposé: America's Investigative Reports.[10]

In Thacker's story on the Weinberg Group, he wrote about a letter that the group sent to DuPont outlining a plan to protect DuPont from litigation and regulation over Teflon.[11] The Weinberg Group had done similar work for Big Tobacco and then began working in Europe to defeat alcohol regulations.[12]

In August 2015, Thacker and fellow journalist Charles Seife wrote articles for PLOS One and the Los Angeles Times on the importance for freedom of information laws in uncovering corruption in science[13][14] The piece in PLOS was retracted, which Thacker wrote about for The New York Times, emphasizing again the importance of freedom of information laws.[15][16] This article was criticized as supporting the launching of "fishing expeditions" which would weaken the right to communication privacy without reasonable doubt, as advocating what could amount to harassment of scientists due to their views on certain societal matters, and as lacking itself the transparency it demands from scientists.[17]

On 2 November 2021, The BMJ published a piece by Thacker alleging there has been "poor practice" at Ventavia, one of the companies involved in the phase III evaluation trials of the Pfizer vaccine.[18] The report was enthusiastically embraced by anti-vaccination activists. Commenting on Thacker's work in Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski wrote that his article presented facts without necessary context to misleading effect, playing up the seriousness of the noted problems.[19]

Controversy

Paul Thacker has promoted conspiracy theories, most notably about vaccines, but also about the supposed health threats of 5G technology[20][21]. Paul Thacker was "fired from the journal Environmental Science & Technology for showing an anti-industry bias[22].

Thacker writes for Children's Health Defense[23], an organization that is known for its opposition to vaccines and water fluoridation. Thacker is opposed to GMOs and is hostile to scientists and teachers who endorse them. A restraining order against Thacker was issued by a district court in Maryland because of Thacker's harassment of a middle school teacher[24]. A long history of similar behavior led his former mentor, science journalist Keith Kloor, to refer to Thacker as a "sadistic troll"[25].

Notes

  1. ^ "Paul Thacker". ethics.harvard.edu. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  2. ^ "Paul D. Thacker - Biography from LegiStorm". www.legistorm.com. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  3. ^ Wadman M (2009), "Money in biomedicine: The senator's sleuth", Nature, 461 (7262): 330–334, doi:10.1038/461330a, PMID 19759593.
  4. ^ Arnold, Matthew (October 2010). "Grassley's Ghostwriter Exits the Hill" (PDF). Medical Marketing & Media. p. 36. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 29, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  5. ^ Thacker, Paul D. (September 19, 2006). "Climate-controlled White House". Salon. Retrieved February 20, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Rep. Waxman Releases Internal Commerce Department E-Mails on Climate Change Archived September 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
  7. ^ Wadman, Meredith (September 17, 2009). "Money in biomedicine: The senator's sleuth". Nature. 461 (7262): 330–334. doi:10.1038/461330a. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 19759593.
  8. ^ a b "Investigative reporting can produce a "higher obligation," Paul D. Thacker, SEJournal, Summer 2007" (PDF).
  9. ^ "Society of Environmental Journalists: SEJ Awards". www.sejarchive.org.
  10. ^ Science Fiction, WNET
  11. ^ The Weinberg Proposal, Environmental Science & Technology, February 22, 2006
  12. ^ McKee, Martin (2006). "A European Alcohol Strategy". British Medical Journal. 333 (7574): 871–872. doi:10.1136/bmj.39003.629606.be. PMC 1626340. PMID 17047004.
  13. ^ Thacker, Paul D.; Seife, Charles (August 13, 2015). "The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two". PLOS Blog. Archived from the original on August 22, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  14. ^ Seife, Charles; Thacker, Paul (August 21, 2015). "Op-Ed: Why it's OK for taxpayers to 'snoop' on scientists". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 20, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ McCook, Alison (August 24, 2015). "Following criticism, PLOS removes blog defending scrutiny of science". Retraction Watch. Retrieved February 20, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ Thacker, Paul D. (January 9, 2016). "Opinion: Scientists, Give Up Your Emails". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 20, 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ Gorski, David. ""Transparency" should not equal a license to harass scientists". Respectful Insolence. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
  18. ^ Thacker PD (November 2021). "Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial". BMJ. 375: n2635. doi:10.1136/bmj.n2635. PMID 34728500. A regional director who was employed at the research organisation Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported
  19. ^ Gorski D (November 8, 2021). "What the heck happened to The BMJ?". Science-Based Medicine.
  20. ^ Van Roermund, Jannes; Thacker, Paul. "Oorlog om 5G: opvallende groep wetenschappers roert zich". De Telegraaf. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  21. ^ Novella, Steven. "Paul Thacker Trolling Skeptics on Vaccines". Neurologica Blog. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  22. ^ Novella, Steven. "Paul Thacker Trolling Skeptics on Vaccines". Neurologica Blog. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  23. ^ "Paul D. Thacker". Children's Health Defense. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  24. ^ Campbell, Hank. "Organic Industry Activist Paul Thacker Gets A Restraining Order From A Teacher He Harassed". Science 2.0. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  25. ^ Kloor, Keith. "The Once Promising Journalist Who Became a Sadistic Troll". KeithKloor.com. Retrieved December 29, 2021.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul D. Thacker.
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