1/
Dr.Thakur, this is a huge issue. Big industry. Powerful lobby. They crush critique wit money power. I hav experienced it first hand.

Here is my story.

Last year March, I published this article based on my experience wit a patient who died after consuming herbalife products https://t.co/UBZRjWxIKE

2/
It went viral on @Twitter
This caught eye of the big company who then proceeded to email me directly regarding my study, asking for proof. I said all my data was in the paper (samples sourced samples frm Amazon from an 'associate seller' 4 analysis)
https://t.co/AgYjhM0i2U
3/
They sent a direct letter (written by a prominent professor at Univ of Guelph, Canada / who works with the company) to the publisher #elsevier outlining 'problems' with my study, asking 4 'retraction'. The publisher suggested we provide a rebuttal - which we did, 24 page long.
4/
The rebuttal was strong wit #scientific evidences 2 support our findings, 2 defend their sometimes 'very stupid' concerns. I was astonished it came from a 'professor' & his team. Nonetheless, I did not hear from the Professor or that Univ again. Things calmed down. For a while
5/
Then came a letter to the editor. This time, from a professor working at a company called #planitox which also is funded by Herbalife. Dr Zambrone wrote this letter trying to show weakness in our manuscript. The editor in chief of the journal asked us to reply to that letter.
6/
Our reply was packed with evidence and strong rebuttal. The letter by Zambrone and our reply was published by the journal. Here is the direct link to it https://t.co/CDmwkMnI63
Again #science helped us defend. Things were calm again. For while.
7/
1 day, I receive legal notice from lawyers firm based in #Delhi advising me 2 provide proof of evidence regarding my study, or face heavy legal action, defamation suite. Rightfully, V again answered 'legally' 2 the firms letter. We wer ready to fight it in court.
#medtwitter
8/
They did not respond back. But then did something terrible. They started harassing the journal, its editorial board, served multiple legal notices to them behind our back. This was last straw. The journal editor in chief was threatened and the publisher panicked
#livertwitter
9/
So the journal did a re-review as per COPE guidelines. the re-review of my study came clean and no errors, scientifically sound, no mistakes were found and review committee advised them to retain the published study. But more legal threats were directed by company to journal.
10/
So without my consent, without my co-authors consent, the journal and the publisher decided to remove the article from all online sources to 'SATISFY' the big company and 'REDUCE' legal tension. So the article now reads. Money won and #science failed. #media
I was miserable
11/
And like that, automatically, the published letter from Zambrone et al and OUR reply to it was also RETRACTED (purely due to pressure, arm twisting) by the publisher and the journal WITHOUT notifying me or my co-authors.
Money won and #science lost. Threats won.
12/
We did everything thru science. Our work was important. It added 2 the growing body of evidence that herbal, nutritional dietary supplements can cause dangerous organ damage in some people. This awareness needs to be raised. Ours is not the first work.
https://t.co/TRxSBYSOlR
13/
We need public awareness. Government support. We need a movement that will take #publichealth to the helm. We need 2 control damaging industries. Keep people's health priority, especially young. Science will help, protect. My patient's story is real
https://t.co/Fdpo6CdZJO
@malini_aisola @pash22 @Shivamda @deralteGaukler @Neurophysik @DrKaloo @Angriy_BiRd @drkamnakakkar @jonathanstea @stethospeaks @compandalt @QuackDetector @DocBastard @GorwayGlobal @d_s_thakur @IMA_MSNIndia @IMAIndiaOrg @Banjotkaur

More from Health

This is the $1mln question still without an answer: why were these workers cleaning bat guano from that abandoned mine?

Surprisingly we simply don't know.

China would have all interest in clarifying that point if for instance they were prospecting or selling guano. It did not.


What we know is that EcoHealth + WIV were sampling bat sites in the vicinity at the exact time of the workers being in that mine.

#DRASTIC wrote about this and about other oddities in the official story:

Maybe it's just one of these coincidences.

Then it gets interesting: about a year after the miners death, Olival & Epstein from EcoHealth Alliance co-authored a paper about the coronavirus risk infection from bat guano collection.

No mention of the

That paper oddly used some old bat samples collected by DARPA in 2006/7 at the famous Thai bat cave.

It never mentioned that the Thai monks have been doing this every Sunday for many many years without infection.

But most interestingly it never mentioned the Mojiang mine accident, even if the perfect timing and recycling of old DARPA bat samples seem to point to a likely knowledge of it.

Anyway, the idea was to ask for more money, as you correctly

You May Also Like

The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.