I have the dubious honor of having caught the attention of the “American Council of Science and Health”, in the Form of Alex Berezow & Co. They are trying to claim that I have “rampant financial conflicts of interest” that I hide when publishing my scientific papers. Because I also work as an environmental consultant for public authorities. In fact, they approach the editors of various scientific journals in order to get me on the journals’ “black lists”.
Here is a reprint of the central part of our twitter discussion, in chronological order (PDF).
If you don’t yet know the “American Council of Science and Health”: here and here and here and here and here and here is some background information.
To cut a long story short: I do not have any undisclosed conflicts of interest. Neither intellectually and certainly not financially.
Wikipedia provides a quite good definition of what constitutes a conflict of interest:
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations in which the personal interest of an individual or organization might adversely affect a duty owed to make decisions for the benefit of a third party. From Wikipedia. (my emphasis)
So, how do my publications and my consulting activities relate and are there any conflicts with my scientific activities? Judge for yourself: a complete list of my publications can be found here. The titles hopefully give a good idea what they are about. And here is the background of my vast financial empire, including a PDF printout of our previous homepage at www.fb-envico.com (which is currently offline because of its lack of GDPR compliance). Our consultancy provides reviews, conceptual analyses and state-of-the-art assessments to public authorities. Often ending up in public reports, which are listed here.
I’d certainly be interested to hear from you (drop me an email), if you’d find that any of those activities would constitute a conflict of interest (financial or otherwise) with my publication activities.
But unless somebody credible approaches me with concerns, I take the activities of the “American Council of Science and Health” for what they are: a public campaign to bully yet another inconvenient academic into silence by going after his reputation.
Updated, 15 June 2018: Moved the list of my consultancy work to a separate (permanent) page, to make it it easier to find in the long run. Phrasing and grammar.
Update, 16 June 2018: Link to the twitter discussion provided.
Update, 17 June 2018: Provided the link to the PDF printout of our old homepage at fb-envico.com, as Berezow & Co insinuate that I am hiding something.