Michael Fumento

After the Volokh Conspiracy posted my Weekly Standard avian flu piece, one commentor remarked: "Fumento is smart, but he's a contrarian by profession and I think that might affect his objectivity." Yes, I was indeed contrarian when we were told "Now No One Is Safe from AIDS," that Ebola posed a pandemic threat, that SARS could overrun the U.S. hospital system (it killed no Americans), that the avian flu hysteria of 1997-98 was just that, and on countless other issues as recent as Herceptin being portrayed as a "cure" for breast cancer when the very studies cited showed women dying while on the drug. If that doesn't detract from a person's credibility, what should?

What a strange world we live in.