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According to Joe Biden and his officials, scientific misinformation and disinformation about the Covid vaccines and climate change is endangering the safety of the American public and social media companies should be much more vigilant about removing it and banning those who perpetrate it. Rather embarrassing, then, that Deputy Director for Climate and Environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy – Jane Lubchenco – has just been barred by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from any involvement in NAS publications and activities for five years for violating its code of conduct. Axios has more.
The NAS, the most prestigious science body in the U.S., said the decision, effective Aug. 8, stems from section 3 of its code of conduct. It states that members “shall avoid those detrimental research practices that are clear violations of the fundamental tenets of research.”
* A NAS spokesperson confirmed that the decision is related to last year’s retraction of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
* Before joining OSTP, Lubchenco edited a paper that was retracted from the journal PNAS in October 2021 because the data underlying the analysis was not the latest available, and because she has a personal relationship with one of the authors (her brother-in-law).
* Lubchenco, while at the White House, has been spearheading work to develop scientific integrity policies across government agencies.
“I accept these sanctions for my error in judgment in editing a paper authored by some of my research collaborators — an error for which I have publicly stated my regret,” Lubchenco said in a statement.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: I was tipped off about this scandal by Igor Chudov’s Substack newsletter. In his item revealing this story, he quotes a White House advisor wagging his finger about the failure of social media companies to do enough to tackle the ‘Infodemic’.
And frankly, the tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation.
Chudov, who is currently in Twitter jail, concludes: “So, I am not allowed to spread misinformation. The White House, on the other hand, has climate change advisors who perpetrate scientific fraud.”
