Full Transparency: I am Paul Thacker’s Fantasy Spy

And how a reporter gave a woman scientist’s information to her top abuser

In a small corner of the internet, some scientists and science writers are taking on a topic that gets little attention from the wider public. Despite the fact that food biotechnology plays a crucial part in the adapting to a future climate framework, scientists and writers who buck the narratives preferred by the organic industry and their anti-vaxxer funded hit squads find themselves getting threatening mail, social media abuse, and in some cases extended conspiracy theories crafted and published, in an attempt to damage their reputations and silence them. It doesn’t get the same attention that attacks on climate scientists do.

A similar attempt at HuffPo aimed at me did not surprise me. For a long time, Paul Thacker, whose reputation for trolling of women who speak out in the food biotechnology space long precedes this, has lobbed lies and false claims about me and other women, without evidence of his conspiracy theories. He seems to think that just repeating them makes them true. They are not. He has, though, managed to find a publisher that shares his lack of rigor and lack of concern for evidence.

Although some people say that these trolls should be ignored, research in science communication says that offering facts and exposing…