The Biden EPA has let scientists win over environmental epidemiology claims just this once. They have debunked claims that acephate 'causes' autism.
Anti-science activists have long claimed everything causes autism and a whole spectrum of 'neurodevelopmental disorders' that covers 85 percent of the world. Vaccines were the big one for 25 years, every kid gets vaccines so that is a huge class-action settlement for lawyers, but then Republicans decided they wanted to be anti-vaccine for a little while so the anti-science left had to scramble for something new.
Acephate was going to be a minor win but a win anyway. They were certain of it. It's an organophosphate, and science-y words mobilize the humanities majors who work at environmental trial groups. They have the organic industry insiders from Consumer Reports, the official fact checkers of Dr. Oz, on their side. They have their political allies at ProPublica. They have osteopath Joe Mercola and that Yogic Flying Instructor in their camp. Plus. it had worked in the past. They told Biden's EPA to stop some weedkillers they couldn't ban - stupid data got in the way - by creating a usage level so low it was a de facto ban, but President Biden didn't tell EPA to do that this time.
How to get progressive journalists to declare that animals are not little people. Have an EPA run by their party use animal models to declare a tomato plant protector safe. The same models they try to use to declare weedkillers cause cancer.
They instead were allowed to use science and eased off on the anti-chemical fundamentalism. They used in vitro assays, prized by activists when epidemiologists are manufacturing their Scary Chemical narrative of the week, and kinetic models. Since scientists were not overruled, they concluded what every EPA before them did; it's fine when used properly. In fact, the Obama-era levels were not based on science, they were an order of magnitude below a No Effect Level.
It was a smart move. By supporting Israel's War on Terror and standing up for science in one case, he gets talking points for moderate academics at a time when their counterparts in the humanities are blatantly engaged in anti-Semitism and think science is a hallmark of white privilege. The bizarre mentality is so worrisome a college is asking the sitting President, leader of their party, not to give a commencement speech, because they don't want students and faculty to say and do in his presence what he is pretending they are not doing and saying at all.
So he can show support for science and risk nothing. What are Democrats going to do, vote for Trump? Of course not. So he can't lose.
And anti-science activists can continue to claim virtual pollution causes autism, so they're not becoming poor any time soon.
