A Top Journalist is Suing the FDA Over Its Alleged Use of a Banned and Secretive Practice to Manipulate the News

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...