Michael Fumento: Science Journalism, Heterosexual AIDS, Monsanto Controversy, Affiliations, Freelance Contributions, Books, and a List of Books by Author Michael Fumento

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Michael Fumento is an American author, photojournalist and attorney who writes about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, science and health issues. Fumento is the son of Rocco Fumento, Professor Emeritus in Film and Creative Writing, University of Illinois and author of 4 books. He has travelled to Al Anbar in Western Iraq on three occasions and to Zabul Province in southeastern Afghanistan at his own expense to embed with U.S. troops. He is extremely critical of most journalists reporting from Baghdad.

Science Journalism more less

In addition to AIDS, Fumento's writing on science have covered other such topics as global warming, ADHD, obesity, the health dangers of breast implants, teen drug use, and Agrarian utopianism. He has been highly critical of what he considers extreme alarmism over such diseases as SARS, Michael Fumento: Hysteria, Thy Name is SARS and the potential of a human avian flu pandemic. Fumento argues that many reports of threats to society are based on bad science and egregiously misused statistics (see junk science).

A common theme is his claim that many liberal environmental groups have a hysterical response to most man-made chemicals. He writes that naturally occurring food chemicals are often every bit as toxic as artificial compounds, and there is no scientific reason to view natural compounds as inherently safer. Environmental groups, he holds, will willingly accept claims that man-made compounds cause cancer, but gloss over the fact that the toxicity tests often involve quantities millions of times larger than any human being would ever ingest. Several of his articles deal with the agricultural chemical Alar, banned as a carcinogen in the United States; Fumento notes that the dosages in one Alar study were the equivalent of almost 30 thousand apples a day for life. In his view, it is impossible to test megadoses of chemicals on mice or rats and extrapolate the results to conclusions about small doses on humans. The statistical nature of these studies, often analyzed by non-statisticians, leaves them vulnerable to extrapolation error. Researchers remain divided on the utility of such tests and on the safety of Alar in particular.

He also has been a frequent critic of activist Erin Brockovich since her eponymous movie first appeared in 2000. Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Michael Fumento reports: "'Erin Brockovich,' Exposed."

Fumento describes himself as a political conservative. He has drawn criticism from liberal and veterans' activist groups for his views on Gulf War Syndrome, (His Reason Magazine article “Gulf Lore Syndrome” Michael Fumento: Gulf Lore Syndrome was a National Magazine Award Finalist in 1998 CJR - 1998 Pulitzer Prize Winners) and for his writings since 1987 Michael Fumento: AIDS - Are Heterosexuals at Risk? which stated that the threat of AIDS to the heterosexual population was greatly overstated. He promotes a position of "skepticism" towards claims that man-made chemicals cause cancer in humans.

Fumento has been outspoken in his support of adult stem cell research and critical of embryonic stem cell research, criticising what he regards as a liberal and corporate bias in favour of the latter.

Fumento also supports hydrogen fuel cell technology.

For Science Under Siege he received two awards, including the American Council on Science and Health's "Distinguished Science Journalist of 1993".

Heterosexual AIDS more less

Fumento is perhaps best known for his epidemiology work, especially infectious disease outbreaks. He argues that the perception of such outbreaks becomes exaggerated or otherwise distorted by those who exploit them to serve various agendas.In November 1987 he published a landmark article, “AIDS: Are Heterosexuals at Risk?” in Commentary which in 1990 became the basis of a controversial book, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS: How a Tragedy Has Been Distorted by the Media and Partisan Politics He has written dozens of subsequent pieces since the book. In Commentary, he challenged the presumption that, as Life magazine’s July 1985 cover declared in bold red letters, “Now No One Is Safe from AIDS.”By 1987, the theme had become common. A January U.S. News & World Report cover story declared, "The disease of them is suddenly the disease of us . . . finding fertile growth among heterosexuals." A New York Times headline that month read: “AIDS May Dwarf the Plague,” citing remarks of then-Secretary of Health and Human Services, Otis R. Bowen, that AIDS could be worse than the “Black Death”, estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop made remarks giving rise to the term “heterosexual AIDS explosion.” Oprah Winfrey told her audience, “Research studies now project that one in five — listen to me, hard to believe — one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years.”

Fumento challenged that orthodoxy, for which he and even those who wrote about him were condemned and even threatened. He did so by interviewing and citing the work of epidemiologists, including the top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) AIDS epidemiologist, Dr. Harold Jaffe, who told him, "Those who are suggesting that we are going to see an explosive spread of AIDS in the heterosexual population have to explain why this isn't happening."

Although he would be accused of claiming heterosexuals have no AIDS risk, the back cover of his AIDS book states, “The ‘myth’ of heterosexual AIDS consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it . . .” Rather, he argued that while white middle-class heterosexuals were the target of AIDS propaganda, “. . . the profile of the typical victim of heterosexually transmitted AIDS is a lower-class black woman who is the regular sex partner of an IV drug user.”

As of 2007, the CDC’s “estimated numbers of cases and rates (per 100,000 population) of HIV/AIDS,” was 96.2 for black women, while only 10.8 for white ones.In a theme discussed in Commentary and greatly expounded upon in his book, Fumento described various agendas served by promoting "AIDS hysteria". These included a media catering to its primarily white, heterosexual, middle-class audience and homosexuals and their sympathizers who believed the disease needed to be “democratized” in order to spur more research funding. “On the opposite side of the spectrum Christian fundamentalists deploy it in order to underline their vision of morality,” he wrote in Commentary. He also discussed this in a 1988 New Republic cover story.