Prominent University of Colorado prof, former AHA president says he's removing his name from retraction request letter to British Medical Journal [UPDATE: He's been scrubbed from the letter]

UPDATE, 12/18/15, 4:22pm ET: The Center for Science in the Public Interest has deleted University of Colorado professor and former American Heart Association president Robert Eckel MD as a signatory on a letter to the British Medical Journal requesting that an article by journalist/author Nina Teicholz be retracted.

Via the original version of the letter dated November 5, 2015 (at this writing still accessible via Google cache):

Via v.2 of the letter dated yesterday:

Below the hash marks is my original item in which Dr. Eckel and the University of Colorado legal counsel stated that he chose to remove his name because I filed a public records request.

Since I reported that item, the university completed my records request. In the near future, I plan to report about what turned up.

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Robert H. Eckel MD, a long-time faculty member at the University of Colorado and former president of the American Heart Association, is removing his name from a letter to the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) that was signed by more "than 180 prominent cardiovascular and nutrition scientists from 19 countries."

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The letter, which was organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington, DC advocacy nonprofit, urged the BMJ to retract The scientific report guiding the US dietary guidelines: is it scientific?, a September 23, 2015 article by New York City journalist/author Nina Teicholz.

Before I get to why Dr. Eckel says he chose to remove his name from the letter, have you ever heard of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines or the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC)?

I hadn't until recently when they were brought to my attention by Yale professor/author/columnist Dr. David L. Katz.

I was reporting a story about an Amazon book review and two Huffington Post columns in which Dr. Katz praised a novel called reVision without disclosing he wrote it under a pseudonym.

When asked to comment, in mid-October Dr. Katz told the Yale Daily News:

(reVision) is not at all the relevant story here.

The real story is this: a group attempting to scuttle the Dietary Guidelines in the US, funded by billionaires with ties to the beef industry and Enron, is unhappy that I have defended the dietary guidelines (that IS my day job), and that I have been among the many prominent voices pointing out their ulterior motives, and erroneous statements. In return, they have gone looking for any basis to discredit me, and the best they could find was... this. My closet is unusually pristine.

As I wrote to Dr. Katz, that sounded like an interesting story I might wish to report.

Per this CSPI press release, on November 5 the story got even more interesting.

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I'd never heard of an attempt by scores of credentialed professionals -- including Dr. Katz -- to urge a medical journal to retract an article by a journalist, so I wanted to learn more.

Click here for the letter and you'll see that a few dozen of the co-signers work at public institutions.

So a couple weeks ago, as I often do when reporting a story, I filed open records requests for related paperwork, including one for:

To my surprise, last week I received this:



I was curious to learn why Dr. Eckel decided to remove his name from the letter, so last night I asked him.

To my surprise, in a series of back and forth e-mails -- see below and click here to download -- he explained that it had to do with my records request and that the university informed him he may face "criminal actions."

According to Dr. Eckel:

I was out of town and that's what the University legal office voice mail message indicated if I didn't respond [to your records request] by a certain date. When I finally reached them my decision was to withdraw my name.

I'm not positive, but Dr. Eckel may be under the impression that removing his name from the CSPI letter terminates the university's obligation to complete my records request.

In any event, I've instructed the university to complete my request and I'll report the results.




This item has been slightly updated.

What Katz hears: After being busted for sock puppetry, prominent Yale prof/author claims to be the victim of "cabal" that has "been bullying me relentlessly"

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Via Scandalous Huffington Post Columns Retracted, So Eat More Cheese! by David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM, LinkedIn, November 23, 2015:

Two of my columns for the Huffington Post have been retracted, and believe it or not, that has something to do with a well-orchestrated effort to scuttle national nutrition policy, and get you to eat more meat, butter, and cheese.

...(Backed) by billionaires with ties to such enterprises as Enron, and the beef industry...their intentions are clear enough: they would like to scuttle the translation of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report into actual Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and thus- sabotage national nutrition policy so [sic] suit their personal inclinations.

...And that’s where the dots finally all connect. I first voiced my grave concerns about these egregious misrepresentations of current nutrition science, to say nothing of the indelible ties between dietary patterns and the fate of the planet, back in May of 2014. I have done so repeatedly since, because it is my job. And, I have apparently done so with enough people listening - thanks to you, my on-line following is well over half a million - that I am of particular concern to the cabal in question.

So, as I have noted before, they have been bullying me relentlessly for months. Most of this has been indictment by innuendo in cyberspace, with every derisive suggestion - he has done industry-funded research, his opinions are for sale - retweeted ad infinitum by other members of the same club. One of the great liabilities of social media and the blogosphere is that any given small group - including a band of wingnuts living in their mothers’ basements - can create enough echoes to seem like a movement.

In the current case, it is now clear that the aspersions directed at me were of the “keep throwing dirt until something sticks” variety. My opinions are not for sale, and I was raised by good and loving parents to be an honest and honorable person, so not much stuck. Until the group stumbled on those posts about reVision, which apparently hadn’t bothered a soul.

Dr. Katz's article includes no evidence to back up any of his allegations, therefore it's unclear how he arrived at such conclusions.  

In any event, here are the facts with a timeline.

September 30, 2015: That morning, a source directed me to this tweet posted the previous day...

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...and to this (now-deleted) gushing five-star book review Dr. Katz posted February 16, 2014 on Amazon.com for the novel reVision without identifying himself as the author:

That afternoon, I reported Katz out of the bag: Did prominent Yale doc/prof/columnist shill review a book he wrote under a pseudonym? I've asked Amazon to take a look.

October 2, 2015: For a follow-up item, I e-mailed some questions to Dr. Katz.

October 17, 2015: Yale Daily News staff reporter David Yaffe-Bellany sent me this on the record e-mail he received from Dr. Katz which I'm publishing with Yaffe-Bellany's permission; click here for more information about the US Dietary Guidelines and the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC):

reVision, however, is not at all the relevant story here.

The real story is this: a group attempting to scuttle the Dietary Guidelines in the US, funded by billionaires with ties to the beef industry and Enron, is unhappy that I have defended the dietary guidelines (that IS my day job), and that I have been among the many prominent voices pointing out their ulterior motives, and erroneous statements. In return, they have gone looking for any basis to discredit me, and the best they could find was... this. My closet is unusually pristine.

Write about reVision if you want (I recommend you read it first)- it will be the best exposure that book has had! But you are certainly being duped, and covering the wrong story- and you will be working at the behest of the likes of Enron, and the beef industry. My hope is you have more laudatory aspirations than that.

Let me know what you think.

David

Here's my on the record response to Yaffe-Bellany:

I can assure Dr. Katz that I'm not part of any cabal, conspiracy, or smear campaign against him. I'm an unpaid, independent blogger who has tagged dozens of shill book reviews on Amazon. That's what led me to his review of reVision and his two Huffington Post columns in which he lavishly praised the novel without informing readers that he wrote it. Instead of trying to change the subject, he should man up and explain what happened.

October 25, 2015: Via Dr. Katz's response to my October 2 e-mail: 

Peter- apologies if I overlooked your prior missive; my inbox is a busy place.

This matter recently came to my attention, and when I looked into it myself, I saw it originated in social media with those intention discrediting the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report. I have long been defending that report (that's my day job), and have incurred varying harassment for months for my pains, as have all others who have done likewise. I have addressed this myself in my most recent column: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/national-nutrition-policy-imperiled-bullies-david-l-katz-md-mph?trk=mp-reader-card

November 4, 2015: Via Yaffe-Bellany's Yale Daily News article, Katz faces criticism for book review:

In February 2014, David Katz MPH ’93, the director of the Yale School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, wrote two glowing online reviews of a science-fiction novel called reVision.

In his biweekly column in The Huffington Post, Katz lauded the book’s “lyrically beautiful writing,” comparing it to the work of a veritable “who’s who” of great writers, including Plato, John Milton and Charles Dickens. “I finished with a sense of illumination from a great source,” he concluded. “The most opportune comparison may be to a fine wine.” Katz had used similar language two days earlier in a five-star product review he posted on the book’s page on Amazon.

But Katz omitted a crucial detail from both reviews: the subject of his praise was his own self-published passion project, released two months earlier under the pseudonym Samhu Iyyam.

...Fred Brown, a spokesman for the Society of Professional Journalists, told the News the Huffington Post column was blatantly unethical, and the blogger, Peter Heimlich, who wrote about the Amazon review in late September and ontacted the News shortly after, said he is not involved in the debate over the guidelines.

...“Instead of trying to change the subject, [Katz] should man up and explain what happened,” Heimlich said. Heimlich added that he has sent a formal complaint to Amazon asking that Katz’s product review be taken down.

Correction: I never complained to Amazon or asked that the review be taken down. For a follow-up item I was reporting, via Amazon's Public Relations department I inquired whether Dr. Katz's review was in compliance with Amazon guidelines. The complete correspondence is posted on my Scribd account.

November 14, 2015: I blogged And he scores! Amazon scrubs "sock puppet" five-star book review by prominent Yale professor, author, columnist.

November 18, 2015: I blogged Huffington Post deletes two columns by prominent Yale professor/author David L. Katz MD; "undisclosed conflict of interest."

My correspondence with Huffington Post editors (which includes the e-mails I exchanged with Dr. Katz) is posted on my Scribd account. 

November 20, 2015: Via Yale doc loses 2 HuffPo blog posts after secretly promoting his novel by staff writer Shannon Palus, Retraction Watch:

The Huffington Post has retracted two blog posts by prominent Yale nutritionist David Katz after learning he had posted incredibly favorable reviews of a new novel - and not revealed that he had written the novel himself, under a pseudonym.

There’s no doubt Katz is a prolific writer - in addition to a couple hundred scientific articles and textbook chapters, Katz regularly blogs for the Huffington Post. He’s also the author of a novel, reVision, under the pen name Samhu Iyyam. Last year, Katz wrote a pair of incredibly favorable reviews of reVision on The Huffington Post that implied he had discovered the novel as a reader. The Huffington Post has taken them down, as blogger Peter Heimlich — yes, related to the maneuver - reported earlier this week. According to Heimlich, a 5-star Amazon review of “Iyyam’s” book, written by Katz, has also been removed.

In the reviews, there’s no hint that Katz is the author.

Per our correspondence, I explained to Dr. Katz that after I finished reporting about reVision, I wanted to learn more about his allegations about being the target of "a cabal." I'll ask him for details and report the results. 

Finally, to my knowledge, Dr. Katz has yet to address why he wrote the Amazon review without disclosing that he was the author.


This item has been slightly updated.

Huffington Post deletes two columns by prominent Yale professor/author David L. Katz MD; "undisclosed conflict of interest" [UPDATED: Retraction Watch picked the story]

11/20/15 UPDATE: Retraction Watch: Yale doc loses 2 HuffPo blog posts after secretly promoting his novel by Shannon Palus 

My original item starts below the hash marks -- PMH

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Gone, baby, gone: Today the Huffington Post retracted both columns; click here and here for archived versions via the Wayback Machine

On Saturday I reported And he scores! Amazon scrubs "sock puppet" five-star book review by prominent Yale professor, author, columnist about how I successfully tagged prominent Yale professor, author, and Huffington Post columnist David L. Katz MD for posting a shill review for a novel he wrote under a pseudonym.

Today, after I brought facts to the attention of editors, the Huffington Post has scrubbed two problematic 2014 columns by Dr. Katz

Via a recent Yale Daily News story by staff reporter David Yaffe-Bellany:

In February 2014, David Katz MPH ’93, the director of the Yale School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, wrote two glowing online reviews of a science-fiction novel called reVision.

In his biweekly column in The Huffington Post, Katz lauded the book’s “lyrically beautiful writing,” comparing it to the work of a veritable “who’s who” of great writers, including Plato, John Milton and Charles Dickens. “I finished with a sense of illumination from a great source,” he concluded. “The most opportune comparison may be to a fine wine.” Katz had used similar language two days earlier in a five-star product review he posted on the book’s page on Amazon.

But Katz omitted a crucial detail from both reviews: the subject of his praise was his own self-published passion project...

If you want to read Dr. Katz's January 17, 2014 and February 18, 2014 Huffington Post columns hyping the novel, as of today you'll have to do so via The Wayback Machine -- that's where the links will take you.

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In response to my inquiry, this morning Huffington Post Standards Editor Victor Brand informed me both columns have been withdrawn from publication. (Click here for my correspondence with him and Huffington Post Communications VP Monica Lee, who reportedly failed to respond to the Yale Daily News; after she ignored my inquiries, I asked Brand to jump in.)

Now if you click the original link to Dr. Katz's first column http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/life-lessons_b_4609530.html you'll see this:

Click the original link to his second column http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/healthy-living-news_b_4796116.html and you'll see this:

This is the second time the Huffington Post has pulled a story after my inquiries to editors. Details via my July 16, 2013 Sidebar item, Huffington Post scrubs Boston-area "comedy" duo's YouTube containing anti-Jewish slur.


This item has been slightly updated.

And he scores! Amazon scrubs "sock puppet" five-star book review by prominent Yale professor, author, columnist

11/18/15 UPDATE: Huffington Post deletes two columns by prominent Yale professor/author David L. Katz MD; "undisclosed conflict of interest" 

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Yo, I just broke my record tagging Amazon shill book reviews.

On September 30, I reported Katz out of the bag: Did prominent Yale doc/prof/columnist shill review a book he wrote under a pseudonym? I've asked Amazon to take a look.

At the time I took this screenshot of the Amazon reviews page for David L. Katz MD, Yale department head, author, and columnist for the Huffington Post and New Haven Register, which included a gushing five-star review for a self-published novel he wrote using the pseudonym Samhu L. Iyyam:

On November 4, the Yale Daily News published the deep-reported Katz faces criticism for book review by staff reporter David Yaffe-Bellany which included:

(Peter Heimlich) has sent a formal complaint to Amazon asking that Katz’s product review be taken down.

As I explained to a helpful Amazon employee (known to me only by the mysterious moniker "Mahesh V") with whom I've corresponded over the past couple of months:

Mahesh: Not a big deal, but I'd characterize my correspondence with you as an "inquiry" rather than a "complaint."

...(When) your company's Reviews team takes care of this, I'll break my record of tagging five-star shill book reviews on Amazon. Per my (unsigned) June 10, 2010 item in the Cincinnati Beacon, shortly after I brought the information to former Amazon employee Mary Osako, 72 five-star shill book reviews were deleted. And per my May 6, 2014 item on my own blog, shorty after I brought the information to Ms. Osako, eight more five-star shill book reviews were scrubbed: making a total of 80.

I'm not sure why Amazon is taking so long to wrap this up, but I'm looking forward to bumping my score to the Big Eight-One!

Somebody cue the theme from Rocky.

Or better yet, The 81 by Candy and The Kisses, one of the greatest-ever girl group records.

As of this morning, here's what Dr. Katz's Amazon reviews page looks like: