What is Bias Part 1. Curious silences about the truth.

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Silver Blaze, Arthur Conan-Doyle

Over at Applied Mythology, Steve Savage simply nails it:


"The Environmental Working Group (EWG) tells us:

"The mission of the Environmental Working Group is to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment."

If you look at their website, a great deal of what they do involves warning people about various "toxic risks." They publish an annual "dirty dozen" list ranking crops by pesticide residues. They have a major effort to identify purported risks from chemicals in cosmetics and sunscreens. They look at toxic things in drinking water and in pet food. They have an extensive "Chemical Index" with toxicity ratings. But there are some very important toxins about which EWG is completelysilent.

THE MISSING TOXINS
The extremely important class of toxic chemicals that is completely absent from the EWG website is Mycotoxins. You can go to the search engine on the site and enter words like: mycotoxin, aflatoxin, fumonisin, ochratoxin, vomitoxin... and find absolutely nothing. What makes this silence so strange is that mycotoxins are known to be some of the most dangerous substances to which people can be exposed, particularly in food. If one of EWG's primary purposes is to "protect public health" it seems odd that they would not say one thing on their web site about this extremely well-documented risk.
Beth Hoffman, an information technology writer, raised an interesting issue today in an article in Forbes. She was discussing the huge disparity between what government and academic scientists say about pesticide safety and what the Environmental Working Group says with its "Dirty Dozen" list. She says, "But at its core, the argument for and against lists like the Dirty Dozen is a question of trust."

The EWG clearly distrusts the scientific/regulatory consensus. But should consumers trust the EWG?..."
More @ Applied Mythology: A Curious Silence: The Environmental Working Group and Mycotoxins: