When researchers from the CDC and the National Cancer Institute wrote a JAMA paper noting that while obesity was linked to excess deaths, it turned out that people who were merely overweight were at less risk of early death than those of so-called normal weight.
Immediately Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Walter Willett, who made his career linking everything to disease or alternatively touting miracle vegetables using shoddy Food Frequency Questionnaires. began “an aggressive campaign that included insults, errors, misinformation, behind-the-scenes gossip and maneuvers, social media posts" and even complaints to their employers. The government scientists we are supposed to trust during COVID-19 were shills for Big Food, he claimed.
That was in 2005 and he has only gotten more crackpot since then. Now anyone who disagrees with his vegetarianism, and conveniently the corporate sponsors of his True Health Initiative, is going to come under fire.
What's sad is that Harvard enables him attacking other academics and government-funded scholars. At a time when the public needs trusted guides more than ever. But he has tenure so he gets to spew hate and conspiracy theory until he decides to retire.
