February 23, 2015

Nine scientific journals published studies funded by climate change deniers

Inside Climate News -  A watchdog group alerted nine scientific journals that studies they published most likely breached conflict-of-interest protocols. The studies in question were co-authored by a prominent climate-change skeptic whose work was funded by fossil fuel interests.

The letters grew out of the release of public records showing that scientist Willie Soon failed to disclose industry funding in 11 studies published by those journals. The lack of disclosure violates many journals' ethical guidelines requiring authors to identify their funders and potential conflicts of interest.

Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, wrote the letters. The Center tracks the activities of companies and organizations that fight against climate action.

The Soon documents are extraordinary because they show the close working relationship between Soon and his funders, according to Davies. He said he didn’t know of another case on this scale involving an ethical quandary for climate funding and academic conflicts of interest. "We were very lucky to get this evidence," Davies said.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would imagine Dr Soon was born and raised in Korea, since in China and Korea money is valued more highly than ethics, though not more than the appearance of ethics: "face".