Elizabeth Whelan’s Impact: A Crusader for the Integrity of Science in Public Debates.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-whelan-1411081887
Elizabeth Whelan didn’t invent the phrase “junk science,” but she dedicated her life to fighting its destructive effects. Since starting the American Council on Science and Health in 1978, Beth, who died at age 71 last week, worked tirelessly to help the public and policy makers understand the uses and abuse of scientific evidence.
We recall Beth visiting our offices shortly after she began ACSH to describe her plans. Our ears perked up when Beth said that one of the things she planned to take on was the Delaney Clause, a federal law that empowers the Food and Drug Administration to ban any chemical or additive that caused cancer in laboratory rats fed vast amounts of the substance.
The FDA’s outrageous interpretations of the Delaney Clause—most famously its attacks on the food sweetener saccharin—was one of our favorite fights. We might have guessed that this smart, focused and forceful woman would stay the course for some 35 years. Her formal training was in epidemiology, and she took the sensible view that if the federal government wanted to ban something, it ought to have credible evidence for doing so. In 2001 the FDA finally declared saccharin safe for consumption.
Essentially what Beth Whelan tried to do was distinguish between science and technology that helped society, such as genetically modified foods, and things that harmed society, such as smoking tobacco. In 1986 she published her most well-known book, “Toxic Terror: The Truth About the Cancer Scare.”
One of the first scientists Beth attracted to ACHS’s cause was Norman Borlaug, the geneticist who developed high-yield varieties of wheat that resisted disease. Beth’s purpose was to organize scientists to take a public position in defense of good science. By the time of her death, ACHS’s board of supporting scientists and experts numbered nearly 350.
Beth accepted corporate contributions to keep ACHS going, and her critics of course used this as a cudgel to suggest her views were tainted. Anyone who spent 10 minutes with Elizabeth Whelan knew there was one thing no one could buy: her integrity. She and the organization she founded have produced a legacy that will last.
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