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Last week, the New York Times published a bizarre “Guest Essay” on autism by Jessica Steier, a Pharma mercenary who has at least 10 financial conflicts of interest and no background in autism research.
I submitted a reply to the article to correct her disinformation and the Times refused to publish it.
Here are the facts for anyone who wants to read them:
Jessica Steier runs a science-for-hire company, “Unbiased Science.” She uses a number of pass-through organizations to launder contributions from large pharmaceutical and chemical companies.
However, one can still figure out a lot of her funders (see article on “Unbiased Science Podcast” in SourceWatch). Steier advises an infant formula company and is an affiliate for a company that makes monosodium glutamate. Her podcast has taken money from 3M, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Moderna, and CSL Seqirus (a flu vaccine manufacturer).
Steier is cartoonishly evil. From SourceWatch:
“Steier’s Unbiased Science Podcast:
-
- Described the herbicide glyphosate as ‘safe for use’
- Declared polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) in Teflon to be ‘non-toxic to humans
- Called the Environmental Working Group Dirty Dozen list of produce with the most and least pesticide residues ‘a fear-based marketing ploy’
- Claimed GMOs are ‘safe,’ ‘nutritious,’ and ‘beneficial to consumers, producers, and the environment’ and
- Called hydrogenated oil ‘a safe dietary fat.’
“The Unbiased Science Podcast recorded two episodes on organic food and farming in December 2022 and January 2023 where they discuss organic pesticides and claim they are more harmful than synthetic pesticides used in chemical farming…
“Andrea C. Love [Steier’s co-host] defended aspartame as ‘safe,’ said in an interview that she has ‘at least one diet soda a day,’ and the Podcast posted on Instagram that ‘Aspartame does not pose a health risk to humans, cancer or otherwise, especially at levels we would consume.’ Love and Steier have been openly critical of the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s ranking of the chemicals considered possibly carcinogenic to humans in 2023.”
SourceWatch provides even more evidence of wrongdoing here.
For those who are new to these topics, mountains of evidence from The Defender, Beyond Pesticides, and Moms Across America, among others, show why all of Steier’s claims listed above are junk science.
Nearly everything Steier writes in her “Guest Essay” on autism is demonstrably wrong. For example, Steier:
- Thinks mercury and aluminum in vaccines are fine even though they are known neurotoxicants (see Grandjean and Landrigan, 2014, Supplementary appendix).
- Omits the fact that Mark, Anne, and David Geier sued the Maryland Board of Physicians and won (and then a higher court retroactively granted “absolute immunity” to this private board even though the Maryland legislature never gave it that right).
- Has read none of the 55 autism prevalence studies in the U.S. since 1970, so she is oblivious to the fact that autism rates have increased 32,158% over that time period.
- Seems unaware that a Danish study she cited favorably recently issued a correction after they discovered, post-publication, 136% more neurodevelopmental events, including autism and ADHD, that changed their research findings.
- Has never read the six vaccinated vs. unvaccinated studies that show that vaccines significantly increase autism risk (see summaries in Rogers, 2025).
Science-for-hire companies will say or do anything for money. Steier’s company, “Unbiased Science,” is relatively new. However, it uses the same playbook developed by other notorious science-for-hire firms, including Gradient, Exponent, and Ramboll. They are often referred to as “rented white coats” (see discussion in Rogers, 2019).
Anyone citing Steier as a “public health expert” has no idea what they are talking about.
The Times devoted considerable resources in the attempt to make this trashy hit piece look presentable to its readers. Its failure to disclose Steier’s extensive conflicts of interest and refusal to publish critical comments in connection with this “Guest Essay” make me wonder if this was a paid advertorial at the behest of a pharmaceutical company.
The autism epidemic is a matter of enormous national importance. Yet everything that the Times publishes on autism is an attempt to cover up the causes and protect the powerful industries that are culpable.
Unfortunately, in the midst of this crisis, the Times has abandoned its role as “the newspaper of record” and is now a criminal syndicate that is endangering the health of all Americans.
