Junk Science Judo

A Short Course

Course Topics

Definition & Consequences

Recognizing Junk Science

What You Can Do About It

All visitors subject to Terms of Service. Course Copyright © 2002 JunkScience.com. All rights reserved on original works. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair use"

Course based on "Junk Science Judo" by Steve Milloy © 2001 Cato Institute. All rights reserved.

E-Learning Powered by Elsync Corp.

Junk Science is Deadly!

Example #1: In the early 1990's, a cholera epidemic in Latin America resulted in as many as 10,000 deaths. The epidemic was made worse by the decision of the government of Peru to stop chlorinating their drinking water in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's labeling of chlorine as cancer causing (1). The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says chlorinated drinking water is one of the greatest achievements in public health (2).

Example #2: Millions of people die and hundreds of millions suffer every year from malaria. Anti-pesticide activists advocate banning of DDT, an insecticide that public health experts say is necessary to reduce this toll (3).

• (1) See, for example, Nature, November 28, 1991
• (2) US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Ten Great Public Health Acheivements-United States, 1900-1999,"Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report", April 2, 1999, pp. 241-243
•  (3) D.R. Roberts, L.L. Laughlin, P. Hsheih, L.J. Legters, "DDT, Global Strategies, and a Malaria Control Crisis in South America, " Emerging Infectious Diseases", July-September, 1997, pp. 295-302