Geoffrey Kabat

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American

State University of New York, Stony Brook. He was co-author of a discredited BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry, that erroneously said there was no association between secondhand smoke and health problems.[1][2][3]

Scientific work

Over a forty-year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. Major topics of interest include: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and nutrition, endogenous and exogenous hormones, obesity and height, the metabolic syndrome, physical activity, electromagnetic fields, and sleep.[4]

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the

front group tasked with "offsetting" damaging studies on passive smoking, as well as by Philip Morris who stated that Enstrom's work was "clearly litigation-oriented."[11] On May 22, 2009, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court's 2006 ruling.[12][13][14]

Books

Kabat is the author of the book Hyping Health Risks, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press. The book examines several alleged environmental health risks, such as the proposed link between artificial chemicals and cancer, and concludes that these risks have been distorted.[15] A 2017 Skeptical Inquirer review says that "Kabat ... helps readers understand relative versus absolute risk, medical research, [and] how pseudoscientific and questionable claims get [mis]reported by news media and activists...."[16]

New England Journal of Medicine, where Barbara Gastel wrote that "Kabat is at his best in the chapters in which he presents the case studies," but she criticized the book's first chapter, entitled "Introduction: Toward a Sociology of Health Hazards in Daily Life".[18] Neil Pearce wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology that he "became more frustrated and less impressed as [he] worked [his] way through the book" and criticized the book for its "lack of balance".[19]

Terence Hines wrote that Kabat "more than accomplishes" his goals of discovering how it is that extraordinary progress is made solving some problems but little is made solving others and why instances of progress get little attention while scientifically questionable issues get more attention. Hines said of the chapter reviewing the question of whether cell phones cause cancer, it "alone is worth the price of the book."[20]

Kabat wrote another book building on the themes in Hyping Health Risks that was published in 2016.[21]

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 27691890
    .
  2. ^ a b "American Cancer Society Condemns Tobacco Industry Study for Inaccurate Use of Data" (PDF) (Press release). American Cancer Society. 2003-05-13. Retrieved 2007-08-29.
  3. ^
    S2CID 74351979
    .
  4. ^ Search Results for author Kabat G on PubMed.
  5. PMID 12750205
    .
  6. ^ .
  7. ^ Kessler 2006, p. 1383
  8. ^ Kessler 2006, p. 1412
  9. PMID 15791022
    .
  10. ^ Kessler 2006, p. 1380
  11. ^ Kessler 2006, pp. 1380–3
  12. ^ Appeal Ruling, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 22 May 2009
  13. ^ Altria, Cigarette Makers Lose 'Lights' Ruling Appeal Bloomberg news, 22 May 2009
  14. ^ U.S. appeals court agrees tobacco companies lied Reuters, 22 May 2009
  15. Wall Street Journal
    . Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  16. ^ "New and Notable". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (2): 60. 2017.
  17. .
  18. .
  19. .
  20. ^ Hines, Terence (2017). "Why We Often Get Risks Wrong". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (4): 58–60. Archived from the original on 2018-09-23. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  21. ISSN 0002-9262
    .

External links

Kessler, Gladys (August 17, 2006). "United States of America v. Philip Morris et al.: Final Opinion of Judge Gladys Kessler" (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Columbia.