Talk:Michael Fumento

Misquote
This article blatantly misquotes Fumento. Case in point… the article says:
 * Although he would be accused of claiming heterosexuals have no AIDS risk,[36] the back cover of his AIDS book[37] states, “The ‘myth’ of heterosexual AIDS consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it . . .” Rather, he argued[38]

When the back of the book actually says:
 * “The ‘myth’ of heterosexual AIDS consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mothers at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. The primary myth, however, was that the disease was no longer anchored to these risk groups but was, in fact, going from heterosexual to heterosexual to heterosexual through intercourse….”

This deliberate misquote makes it seem like Fumento is admitting heterosexual transferal of AIDS is indeed common which Fumento certainly does not say.

I would further question why the comment:
 * In 2009, the CDC reports, there were 12,860 HIV infections through heterosexual contact.[41]

is in the article at all? This is a biography of Fumento and he certainly did not write or say this. Is this an attempt to refute Fumento? This comment is totally inappropriate and should be removed unless Fumento is given an opportunity to respond.

I did some searching on the web and found that Tim Lambert is an anti-Fumento blogger? I don’t know anything about Fumento myself other than I read one of his books, but doesn’t it seem inappropriate for Mr. Lambert to be writing a biographical article about Fumento, especially when he admits to removing edits by Fumento himself! Shouldn’t Fumento be allowed to correct his own biography? How do we report Mr. Lambert's abuse to an administrator? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joenitwit (talk • contribs) 16:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, a person may not edit his own entry. However, I suspect it happens often. Nicmart (talk) 06:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Bias
V, I don't see any bias in this article. It's just not well-written. What do you suggest? --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 13:13, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * It lacks any detail on the serious criticisms of Fumento. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AaronSw (talk • contribs).

Jew?
Is he a Jew? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.42.117 (talk) 18:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

He is half Jewish and Half Italian he is my first cousin. His mother is Jewish but he is a Catholic like his father my uncle Rocco —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.152.226 (talk) 04:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Edits made by Michael Fumento
I've reverted edits made by Michael Fumento. See WP:AUTO. If you are wondering how I know that 69.143.188.141 is Fumento, see here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TimLambert (talk • contribs).

The link leads only to an error message. Nicmart (talk) 06:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Education/Background
Does anyone have any idea what this guys education background is. Normally I don't think it matters that much, but as a scientific journalist (particularly one who has made some interesting claims on cancer causing agents) it definitely does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.202.84.44 (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

The book grant
From the Fumento column 71.226.45.87 linked to: "Javers asked if I had EVER received money from Monsanto. Sure, I said. It was a $60,000 book grant to my employer, solicited back in 1999, which was applied to pre-established salary and benefits." Emphasis mine. This was a grant solicited by Fumento himself for a book (BioEvolution) to be written by Fumento, not generic funding tossed in the general direction of the Hudson Institute. --Lanius 13:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Book Grant Redux
From the Fumento column 71.226.45.87 linked to: "Javers asked if I had EVER received money from Monsanto. Sure, I said. It was a $60,000 book grant to my employer, solicited back in 1999, which was applied to pre-established salary and benefits." New emphasis mine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.226.45.87 (talk • contribs).
 * So the Hudson Institute received it, they passed it on to Fumento, and he received it (as was Monsanto's intent all along). That's what routinely happens with grants, and we always speak of them as being to the person the money is meant for. If you want to write up a more detailed, NPOV account of what happened then go ahead, but it's disingenuous to imply that Fumento didn't benefit personally from Monsanto's largesse. --Lanius 05:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Now I'll Tell it the Right Way...
Wrong on all counts.

1) The Hudson Institute did not pass along the grant to Fumento. His salary was unaffected by the grant.

2) Members/fellows of a think tanks are expected to solicit grants from corporations and philanthropies for the good of their institution. These grants are put into a general fund used to pay pre-established salaries and benefits for all members. There is no quid pro quo.

3) I've maintained a NPOV in my description of events. If there's been a breach of NPOV, it's from those who disingenuously accuse Fumento of being paid off via Monsanto's "largesse." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.226.45.87 (talk • contribs).

Monsanto Controversy
I'd tried to rewrite the section avoiding questionable issues and sticking just to the facts. Comments? --Pierremenard 03:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Re: Monsanto Controversy
I like it. Well done! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.226.45.87 (talk • contribs).

Article needs work ... badly
(I may have played Gauntlet a little too much.)

This article is badly out of date, reflecting none of Fumento's recent activities as a war reporter. It is out of date in another way as well: it arguably violates WP:BLP, a newish policy. (Also, the link to Tim Lambert's attack blog, now deleted, clearly violated WP:EL as it now stands.) Furthermore, it comes close to violating WP:OR and the coverage of the Monsanto kerfuffle probably needs to be trimmed down per the "undue weight" provisions of WP:NPOV and WP:BLP.

I've made a start on reducing these problems, but lots more work needs to be done. We probably should have a paragraph or two about his reporting from Iraq under a new "==" heading. Any volunteers? Please? CWC (talk) 13:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC) who also refactored Monsanto-related comments down one level

Tim Lambert blog
Blogs are generally not good things to link to (except for blogs by the subject of an article). There's an exception for experts, but isn't Lambert's day job is computer science. Andjam 15:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It depends on the blog. In this case, the blog isn't just offering opinions on F, but sources. For eaxmple: Fumento argues: the researchers didn’t feel themselves bound by anything official, like death certificates... Unfortunately, Fumento seems to have missed the immediately preceding sentences in the Lancet paper, where they noted that, when asked, 81% confirmed with death certificates. And  Fumento’s “killer” argument is: “Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja,” the journal reported. That’s it; game over; report worthless... Here are the two sentences in the report that follow the one he quoted: If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1.5-fold (1.1-2.3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98 000 more deaths than expected (8000-194 000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja. This is useful well sourced information. It doesn't matter if it comes from a blog William M. Connolley 16:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Lambert may be using sources, but he draws conclusions from them. That's clearly original research. Unless that original research has been verified (very unlikely!), the "contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research" part of WP:EL clearly applies. Note that containing sources does not cancell out containing unverified original research; a page that contains the latter is disallowed by WP:EL no matter what else it contains. (Note also that the link contains all Dr Lambert's posts about Fumento, even ones he has not made yet. Hmm.)
 * WMC, I'm suprised to see you write that whether we should link to a blog "depends on the blog". I thought it only depended on whether the blog was run by the subject of the article (or an ally), at least for polemical blogs like Dr Lambert's.
 * (I vaguely recall Fumento writing something about Dr Lambert somewhere. If their dispute reached notability, maybe we could summarise it in the article and use Dr Lambert as a citation (only for what Dr Lambert wrote, of course)? That would dodge the whole WP:EL issue.)
 * I see the skimpy coverage of Fumento's recent career shift to Embedded blogging as a more important defect in the article, but I'm not volunteering to fix it myself. Cheers, CWC (talk) 02:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * On the other hand:
 * If an article presents multiple points of view, it is useful to provide a link to prominent sites dedicated to each point of view. The number of links dedicated to one point of view should not overwhelm the number dedicated to any other. Each link should be accompanied by a detailed explanation informing the reader which point of view it presents. If one particular point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first. (For more information, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view – in particular, Wikipedia's guidelines on undue weight.)
 * Gzuckier 18:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

National Journalism Center
I removed this from the article because it is messy, opinionated, and was added by an anonymous user:

Michael Fumento was a graduate of the 12 week course in extreme business-oriented, right-wing journalism offered by the National Journalism Center and he worked for much of his early life with Investor's Business Daily/

Unsourced Sentence
I removed an unsourced sentence about Buckley and Reagan. Feel free to put it back if you like. Michaelgossett (talk) 23:02, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Outdated
This entry is now stale and outdated. Fumento has disappeared from the public debate. The “old right” quote is peculiar since Fumento likes Burke. Buckley and Reagan were definitely not “old right.” Is Fumento even still alive? Nicmart (talk) 16:33, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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BLP
Per WP:BLP:

"Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.[a] Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, to this policy, and to Wikipedia's three core content policies:

Neutral point of view (NPOV) Verifiability (V) No original research (NOR)"

An IP editor removed some article content here, but was promptly reverted. The revert was unfortunate. The content that was removed is an obvious and blatant violation of policy, and the IP editor was right to remove it. Controversial or negative claims about living people must be reliably sourced. There was no reliable source for the claim that Fumento's views about the coronavirus are wrong. The assertion that they are wrong was sourced to one of Fumento's own articles. Obviously an article by Fumento is not a reliable source for the claim that Fumento's views are wrong. The claim that his views are wrong was simply editorial opinion. It has no place in the article. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 11:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we can safely say that Fumento was wrong about the virus. Nicmart (talk) 06:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Conflict with Taubes
He got into it with science writer Gary Taubes in Reason magazine, and then with the editor of the magazine. That’s worth mentioning. Nicmart (talk) 06:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Injuries in Iraq?
Wasn’t Fumento badly injured in Iraq? Nicmart (talk) 06:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)