A Top Journalist is Suing the FDA Over Its Alleged Use of a Banned and Secretive Practice to Manipulate the News
By Dave Mosher,
Business Insider
| 09. 24. 2016
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may reportedly still engage in a banned practice that manipulates popular news coverage, and a few of America's top science journalists are railing against the government organization because of it.
One of them is even suing the FDA for documents related to the matter.
The commotion, raised by NYU journalism professor Charles Seife in a feature story at Scientific American, deals with the FDA's use of a worrisome media strategy called a "close-hold embargo." (Seife's NYU colleague and journalist Ivan Oransky previously detailed the matter in a series of posts at his blog Embargo Watch.)
Close-hold embargoes let a select few journalists get access to newsworthy information, yet only after they agree not contact anyone outside the organization for second opinions.
The result is that due diligence goes out the window: Without the ability to contact outside experts, a bunch of stories appear in the most popular news outlets in the world all at once — yet without any independent expert voices to backstop the new information.
And with the FDA, the...
Related Articles
By Annika Inampudi, Science | 08.01.2025
In June, Sara* received a message asking whether she wanted to continue to participate in a massive, multicenter research project led by scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark. The iPsych study, the message said, had sequenced her genetic data from...
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Riley Beggin and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post | 08.03.2025
The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said, even though the idea was one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges.
Last...