Quite correct, TheRealBill.

This is part of the reasoning behind the notion of always assessing the claims, methods, and data first, not the messenger. Dismissing work based on who did it or who payed for it isn't science.

I should also clarify, that I do realize that there is a portion of the population that really has Celiac Disease, and I completely sympathize with them and I am happy that the gluten free fad has given them a variety of new choices. Although I think most people who tout gluten allergies have absolutely no medial evidence to support their claims, because I always ask and they never say they have actually been diagnosed with anything..

My 16-year-old daughter had gradually worsening irritable bowel issues that specialists couldn't really diagnose over a period of several years, including via minor surgery. This summer, after improving her diet, such problems have gone away. It's not the gluten necessarily that is the problem. The byproduct of glyphosate is cresol, the main component in the wood preservative creosote, for which long term exposure does cause digestive tract irritation.

Many people who later were shown to be pioneers in science were at first called quacks, particularly Judah Folkman and his angiogenesis theory regarding cancer. Now he is recognized for being right.

I discovered the cause of gluten intolerance, it's called a FAD with a big dose of placebo effect. One hipster claims he is allergic to gluten, it gets posted to facebook and suddenly 1,000 more people are allergic to gluten. "Gluten-free" sounds super cool so 50 gluten free bakeries pop-up and major companies get in on the fad and make millions. Our society as a whole is becoming more and more gluten intolerant. The Pillsbury doughboy is planning to file a discrimination suit.

Stephanie Seneff is a senior research scientist at MIT. Based in the university’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Seneff’s focus is, according to her web page, “the intersection of biology and computation.” She is also, according to many in the science community, a "quack,” meaning a poseur at the business of science, and a practitioner of pseudoscience.
However, her methods of using Natural Language Processing (from her computer background) in combination with her biology training may be uncovering beneficial data that would otherwise remain hidden in existing unrelated studies.

She has also written a paper on Low Fat Diet and Statins and a possible link to Alzheimer's.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/alzhe...