Via BoingBoing, I recently encountered an interesting read about how the scientific consensus about diet was influenced by decided unscientific means. Ironically, the article is published by an organization that is at least roughly speaking a newspaper, while explicitly mentioning that newspapers have a credibility problem. Informed individuals who would say Yudkin was a fraud may well exist; I suppose that readers will believe whatever they believe.

I personally find the narrative of corruptible science believable, which is why I think it dangerous to categorically dismiss dissenters from any scientific consensus as fools. Deniers of anthropogenic climate change may in fact be Yudkins, however small the probability might be.