5 May 2015
Ms. Marge Dwyer, Harvard T.P. Chan School of Public Health
mhdwyer “at” hsph.harvard.edu
Dear Ms Dwyer:
Research-related fraud at Harvard institutions
A series of connected frauds surrounding research into climate change and related questions at Harvard has come to light because an environmental advocacy group had falsely accused Lord Monckton’s distinguished research colleague Dr Willie Wei-Hock Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics of having failed to disclose a funding conflict in a paper in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr Soon, like all his co-authors, had received no funding for his research into climate sensitivity modeling. That did not stop Dr Charles Alcock, the Center’s director, from allowing it to issue a statement alleging Dr Soon had failed to disclose a conflict of interest and claiming that it proposed to “investigate” him, when in fact it had itself negotiated a contract with Dr Soon’s funder for solar research that forbade it or Dr Soon to disclose the funder’s identity. Dr Soon had played no part in those negotiations. The Center alone was responsible. Dr Alcock also falsely told a journalist that the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics had no legal existence and alleged that, therefore, Dr Soon ought not to have described his affiliation as “Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics”, falsely implying that Dr Soon had improperly inflated his credentials.
Your name appears as the contact for a press release at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/clean-power-plan-health-benefits-hinge-on-policy-decisions/, entitled Clean air and health benefits of clean power plan hinge on key policy decisions. The press release constitutes a gushing encomium of a commentary entitled US power plant carbon standards and clean air and health co-benefits by Charles T. Driscoll, Jonathan J. Buonocore, Jonathan I. Levy, Kathleen F. Lambert, Dallas Burtraw, Stephen B. Reid, Habibollah Fakhraei & Joel Schwartz, published on May 4, 2015, in Nature Climate Change: doi:10.1038/nclimate2598.
Two of the co-authors of the commentary, Buonocore and Schwartz, are researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Your press release quotes Buonocore thus: “If EPA sets strong carbon standards, we can expect large public health benefits from cleaner air almost immediately after the standards are implemented.” Indeed, the commentary and the press release constitute little more than thinly-disguised partisan political advocacy for costly proposed EPA regulations supported by the “Democrat” administration but opposed by the Republicans. Harvard has apparently elected to adopt a narrowly partisan, anti-scientific stance.
The commentary concludes with the words “Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests”. Yet its co-authors have received these grants from the EPA: Driscoll $3,654,609; Levy $9,514,391; Burtraw $1,991,346; and Schwartz (Harvard) $31,176,575. The total is not far shy of $50 million.
Would the School please explain why its press release described the commentary in Nature Climate Change by co-authors including these lavishly-funded four as “the first independent, peer-reviewed paper of its kind”?
Would the School please explain why Mr Schwartz, a participant in projects grant-funded by the EPA in excess of $31 million, failed to disclose this material financial conflict of interest in the commentary?
Would the School please explain the double standard by which Harvard institutions have joined a chorus of public condemnation of Dr Soon, a climate skeptic, for having failed to disclose a conflict of interest that he did not in fact possess, while not only indulging Mr Schwartz, a climate-extremist, when he fails to declare a direct and substantial conflict of interest but also stating that the commentary he co-authored was “independent”?
Would the School please tell His Lordship, who has standing as Dr Soon’s lead author, how to lodge a complaint of research misconduct in respect of the massive, direct and undisclosed conflict of interest on the part of its researcher Mr Schwartz, and of the School’s misrepresentation of the commentary as “independent”?
Yours truly,
James Rowlatt
Clerk to Lord Monckton
+100
Leftists consider themselves to be pure. They also consider govt money to be equally pure.
Thus being funded by govt to advance the interests of govt is an activity that cannot be questioned.
It was government money, so it was as pure as driven snow and their report was totally objective. The fact that it told the EPA exactly what it wanted to hear is just coincidental, honest.
It was everyone else’s money, so it was as pure…
Fixed it for ya. (gummint has no money)
When everybody’s money passes through the orifices of govt, something magical happens to it, giving it the properties of pureness. In fact it becomes so pure that anything it touches also becomes pure.
Within Big Government, ‘everybody’s money’ quickly becomes ‘nobody’s money’.
Correction:
Corporations and individuals do not have the right to tax your assets, to spend your grandchildren’s future income or to imprison you. Only the State does.
So yes, why much of the Left sees the State, acting in it’s own interest as nearly always virtuous and business as nearly always evil I find confounding
The EPA has a clear agenda ; they “give” Harvard $50,000,000 of taxpayer funds ; Harvard spends in in a way that pleases the EPA ; poof, the EPA and Harvard declare the findings to be objective and independent
Pure fraud.
I agree Mr. Homewood.
Words fail me.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Their response will be…..
Crickets.
…which appear to be among the suggested replacements for beef, lamb and pork in our future “climate-friendly” diet. 😉
I wonder if the crickets will come in different flavors?
I will go for the chocolate coated crickets.
Oh and please make those renewable chocolate coated crickets.
I can’t stand the other kind.
Fat fu*$Ing chance.
Wonderful. Let’s hope this lawsuit brings all this to the public’s attention and the perpetrators all fully and financially admonished. And, let’s further hope that this lays an iron-clad basis for Dr. Soon to sue the above perpetrators.
When proven in a court of LAW, their fraudulent actions demand a penalty far beyond a simple admonishment
about the only way the media will publish anything on this story would be a $2,001 decillion lawsuit for damages.
Ouch.
Methinks His Lordship has removed his glove and used it to slap Harvard. T’will be interesting to see if his challenge is accepted. 😉
Aieeee, even!
Ms. Dwyer will ignore the letter and continue doing what’s she’s been doing.
On orders from “on high”…..
Okay, add payola profs to payola news outlets and all funded by total disregard for taxpayer funds
Cat meet pigeons.
Would the School please tell His Lordship … how to lodge a complaint …
I’m quite sure she’s going to get right on it.
The first one is to accept that they have always been as they are; they didn’t just wake up one morning a few months ago and decide to become a low life. The further back you go into their history, the easier it’ll be to find and dig out the skeletons. They will be there. Like all beginners, even spinners of webs of deceit, that’s where they’ll have made the most detectable blunders. If my cheque from big oil ever arrives, I’m very definitely going to spend the lot combing through the early background of a number warmists, confident of finding some interesting stuff.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/a-climate-of-deception-deceit-lies-and-outright-dishonesty/
Pointman
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
People in glass houses.. (HARVARD) should not [throw] rocks………
What a bunch of double standard lefty!!
Haardvark School of Public Health
Where Quality is an Afterthought
Where Quality is…collateral damage
Where quality is an unintended consequence.
I suppose he could enquire of the people who handed over the money if they thought it was well spent.
So, zemlik, if the people who handed over the money think that using it to propagandize and lie for the cause is money well-spent, does that make it okay? How many researchers would disclose their funding if disclosure was left up to donors to decide?
Considering the source of funding, as a taxpayer I’m one of the people to ask. And no, I do NOT consider it well spent.
Funny. From the style I could have sworn that Lord Monckton wrote that himself. I hope Clerk James is not a sock puppet.
Don’t whine.
ROTFL…………..
🙂
We’ve got a five dollar fine for whinin’
We’ll tell you before you come in
If it ain’t on your mind to have a good time
Ya’ll come back and see us again.
From the song “Five Dollar Fine” by Chris Ledoux
A good policy to follow.
Whoop!
I love that response.
Add another +100 to dedaEda’s +100!
@Nick do you have a check from the EPA? So Monckton is full of bombast and relishes a good brawl in the hall that doesn’t detract from the point the letter is making about the environmentalist conflict of interest double standard?
Well, the post doesn’t say whose double standard or what the Harvard paper actually declared. Harvard had no management authority over Dr Soon. In fact the declaration in the Harvard paper was this:
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/harvard.png
Unlike Dr Soon, they declared the funding of the actual paper. There’s no requirement that you list every grant every author has ever had. That could often be longer than the paper.
For me, I have never had EPA funding.
Aannd those last two lines Nick?
They acknowledge and thank the heavily biased and activist foundations for their financial support.
Neither independent nor are they free from ‘competing financial interests’.
Start with the ethics violations; one by one, then review and perhaps pursue legal actions.
“They acknowledge and thank…”
Exactly. They did that. Dr Soon didn’t. You may think the funding sources are biased. Readers can make up their own minds. That is why it is disclosed.
What do you think “competing financial interest’ means here?
Nick Stokes says “What do you think ‘competing financial interest’ means here?”
I think it means, in colloquial terms, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. Other colloquialisms include “quid pro quo”.
Nick Stokes
Am I getting this right? These four guys receive grants from the EPA totaling almost 50 million dollars and then write an “INDEPENDENT” paper favorable to the EPA and you claim that the money that they previously received is not relevant?
They did not bite the hand that was feeding them — but rather they licked it (or maybe it was the EPA’s ass they licked). What planet do you live on Nick Stokes?
Eugene WR Gallun
Mr Stokes says Dr Soon did not declare his financial interest. However, in the paper he co-authored with us for the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (go to scibull.com, click on “most read articles” and we are the all-time no. 1), he was writing about climate sensitivity modeling. None of his funding was for that purpose and, like all of us, he had received not a dime from anyone for that work, which he did in his own time. Nor did his funding for research into the sun-climate connection have any conceivable bearing on our paper. Indeed, the words “Sun” and “solar” occurred only once each in our paper, in connection with the uncontroversial mean flux density of incoming solar radiation. No conceivable conflict of interest could legitimately be pleaded in these circumstances.
As for 11 earlier papers in which Dr Soon’s funding was not disclosed, Dr Soon was bound by a confidentiality clause in the funder’s contract with the Smithsonian Observatory. The Observatory, and not Dr Soon, was solely responsible for that clause, but Dr Soon was bound by it. It would have been unlawful for him to breach the contract between his employers and the Smithsonian by disclosing his funding. Significantly, it is only in those 11 papers that his funding is not disclosed. Mr Stokes should in future not rush to judgment until he has bothered to research the facts.
The fraud by misrepresentation of which the Harvard School of Public Health is guilty is an entirely different matter – and one one which Mr Stokes, a petulant partisan, is characteristically and culpably silent. The School issued a statement fraudulently asserting that the commentary of which two of its researchers were co-authors was “independent”, when in fact, one of those two co-authors, and three others, had received between them the best part of $50 million from the EPA – the very body whose proposed regulations the commentary enthusiastically supported. Harvard benefits to the tune of tens if not hundreds of millions from climate-related activities every year. The police will be asked to investigate. In the United Kingdom, still imn one or two respects a free country, if (as is all too likely) the police refused to investigate, we’d have the right to prosecute privately. In the U.S., you have no such right, and Harvard may well get away with its gross criminality. However, as this thread reveals, Harvard alumni are furious. The failure of Mr Schwartz to declare his conflict of interest is in manifest breach of the disclosure policies both of Harvard University and of the School, and he cannot plead that the EPA had a contractual obligation of confidentiality with Harvard or with the School or with him personally because it was from the EPA’s own published list of grant awards that the total sum it paid to Mr Schwartz and his various research groups was ascertained.
If Mr Stokes is genuinely unable to understand the double standard operated by Harvard institutions here, then there is nothing I or anyone can do for him, except to pay no attention to any more of his characteristically snide, unconstructive, prejudiced, malicious trolling.
“Dr Soon was bound by a confidentiality clause in the funder’s contract with the Smithsonian Observatory.”
“because it was from the EPA’s own published list of grant awards that the total sum it paid to Mr Schwartz and his various research groups was ascertained.”
Beats me how you can make a virtue of the fact that the medico’s funding was public while Soon agreed to keep it quiet.
As to Harvard’s alleged crimes, here is what the Journal specifies as “competing financial interests”. It is oriented toward personal financial dealings. It would be an extreme stretch to claim that the EPA “may gain or lose financially through this publication”.
No need to swear. Didn’t even need Mosher to nail that one. “encomium”?!! Great style, better than media boilerplate. Don’t know how it plays in Oz, but the content should carry it across.
Nick,
As a brother colonist from a different colony, I’d share your distaste for the lordy,lordy bits (if you expressed it) but I’d be intrigued to learn which stylistic elements led you to your conclusion that Monckton is his own clerk.
I’ll make my own rash assumption and conclude that it all hinges on whether “gushing encomium” is a tautology or not and whether, in your mind, two separate people could similarly equate prolixity and perspicuity.
In addition, I’m curious to know in what way it’s of any consequence either way.
It’s interesting that you don’t consider (not far shy of) 50 million bucks from the EPA a competing financial interest in a paper that’s all about the EPA.
Actually, I retract “interesting”. I’ll go with “unsurprising” and “absurd”.
Mebbe says “In addition, I’m curious to know in what way it’s of any consequence either way.”
It is a “squirrel”, a distractor in the same mode as making a big deal of Willie Soon’s funding. Anything but considering the research itself.
The term “gushing encomium” is neither tautology nor redundancy nor pleonasm. Linked below you will find an encomium to writing penned by Abraham Lincoln, which, considering its sparing use of superlatives and attention to demonstration can not be disparaged as “gushing”. Remember that this encomium was intended for speech, not text; therefore, do not be repelled by Lincoln’s alerting use of the phrase “great, very great” near the beginning. Patience. Let this be a model for aspiring encomiasts: Flow. Do not gush.
http://grammar.about.com/b/2011/02/18/presidents-day-special-the-great-invention-of-writing.htm
“If EPA sets strong carbon standards, we can expect large public health benefits from cleaner air almost immediately after the standards are implemented.”
Grants from the EPA: Driscoll $3,654,609; Levy $9,514,391; Burtraw $1,991,346; and Schwartz (Harvard) $31,176,575. The total is not far shy of $50 million.
==========
the finest science money can buy. the only question is: who gets the benefits?
Public Health Benefits – something paid for by the public to benefit people in high places.
“…we can expect large public health benefits…”
Well I’d say that at least a small group of the public (Driscoll, Levy, Burtraw, Schwartz) got really healthy from that grant money; so just writing about strong carbon standards seems to have healthy benefits for some.
I’m convinced that the rent seeking warmist/EPA crowd are crooks. They are highly educated in their field (supposedly) but they lie, cheat and avoid the truth at all cost, What is truth, science math/equations that proves a theory, that is readily verifiable by all comers, that in turn becomes a fact. Lord Monckton and Willy Soon are truth seekers as apposed the the low life Warmist rent seekers.
Hmmm….“If EPA sets strong carbon standards, we can expect large public health benefits from cleaner air almost immediately after the standards are implemented.”
Has the director of HSPH stepped outside of her building and/or residence in the last 40+ years since the passage of the Clean Air Act or consulted with her colleagues in said school and not noticed the vast reductions in respiratory ailments related to having clean air to breathe? Harvard should hang it’s head in shame for issuing such an outrageous statement.
They know that reducing CO2 does not “clean” the air, but they want to leave that impression in the minds of the gullible. The only way strong carbon standards will clean the air is by forcing coal-fired plants to shut down. New EPA standards on mercury and other pollutants may also clean the air a bit, but that’s not because of less CO2.
There are areas where naturally occurring mercury levels are higher than the proposed safe level. Are the gods at the EPA going to fix that with the next sweep of their magic wand?
It’s a common bureaucratic idea that anything can be fixed by throwing ever larger amounts of other peoples money at it.
James Bull
In the same way the EPA has demonised mercury (the element itself, not the various forms of it both toxic and non-toxic) they wish to demonise Carbon in all forms. It keeps the argument simple: Mercury = bad, there should therefore be no mercury in anything or emitted by anything. As soon as you hear ‘mercury’, run! Such statements are always absent of numbers because putting real numbers on things creates exposure to a proper debunking.
Carbon is of course found in many forms, humans being one, so demonising carbon is riskier. Carbon is considered to be ‘dirty’ only because it makes clothes dirty so it is naturally referred to as carbon instead of CO2 which is not dirty at all.
The anti-carbon meme thrives only on ignorance. Carbon is everywhere. Mercury is everywhere. Sunlight is everywhere. UV is everywhere. Lead is everywhere. Without trace elements and carbon and sunlight and UV we would die. Without CO2 all plants would die save a few in the deep ocean vents that rely on sulphur compounds for food.
The unreasonableness of fanatical exclusion has already reached its limit: the demands for ‘less’ to be emitted have reached a point lower than the background levels. The same is true for radiation. The EPA was going to issue a PM2.5 limit for farming! Can you imagine shutting down farming in order to prevent ‘anthropogenic dust’ reaching the atmosphere? It has been shelved but the fact that it was ever part of someone’s paid activity shows the isolation some departments have from reality.
The much cleaner air achieved by the good efforts of the EPA (which are admirable) have not led to a reduction in asthma which is increasing rapidly in developed, cleaner countries. PM limitations are made more stringent specifically to deal with the ‘asthma problem’ (in the supporting documents) but it has not worked at all. Why? Did humans evolve in a dust-free environment? There is an underlying goal which is to ban all solid fuel combustion, even utterly renewable wood. It is the Beverly Hills approach to development: “Stop working so hard. Let’s have everyone eat cake. Cake, like milk, comes from stores, right?”
A few years back, it was demonstrated that when driving in or near Los Angeles, the air coming out a car’s tailpipe had fewer pollutants in it, then the air entering the air filter did.
Well, if they can produce false or poorly documented ‘science’, I’m sure these kind of places and people can also produce false or poorly documented accounts?
Unfortunately when you deal with the LEFT, there is no shame, no standards and no way to obtain “justice”. Alas, I’m reminded of a quote from a VERY famous “leftist”, “Power comes…at the tip of a gun…” (Mao Tse Tung). Yet at the same time, I have to remind myself of a society organized about a system of LIES, spead from “the top”, which essentially “fell apart” in a year when the fact that most of the people IN that society, realized they’d been fed LIES all their lives, and the NOMANCLATUREA (people of name) suddenly lost all their power. ALAS, the NOMANCLATUREA has come back, and the evidence is: “Power comes at the tip of a gun…” (Left to the reader to figure out which society I refer too…)
Whoah! This one is going to take buckets of whitewash.
Words are easy to ignore by those who don’t want to hear them.
But when enough other people have heard those same words…………
Keep spreading the words.
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton, James Rowlatt.
Well said. Not that I think this is a mortal blow for the Harvard corrupt bureaucracy, but every little bit helps.
It could be mortal to one or two careers. Academia in general takes a dim view of gross misbehaviour (believe it or not) if it can be proven. Yes, there is a lot of team playing, but if forced, they will throw their own under the bus quite happily and claim they never actually met the guy.
“If EPA sets strong carbon standards, we can expect large public health benefits from cleaner air almost immediately after the standards are implemented.”
Hmmm…
wonder what would happen if the EPA set strong CO2 standards?
I suspect that “almost immediately” we would notice absolutely no public health benefit after the CO2 standard was implemented.