It's Time To Rethink The Value Of PhD: Distrusting the "Other" Doctors Advice on Engine Fuels

by Marc J. Rauch (The Auto Channel) ... Tobacco advertising that promoted doctor-endorsements appeared in all consumer media as well as leading medical publications like "The New England Journal of Medicine" and "The Journal of the American Medical Association."

According to Robert K. Jackler, MD, Sewall Professor and Chair, otolaryngology - head and neck surgery at Stanford University Medical Center, "Cigarette companies also wanted doctors to smoke their brands."* To this end, tobacco companies participated in medical conventions by sponsoring doctors' lounges and giving away free cigarettes. At least one cigarette manufacturer created an internal Medical Relations Division to find medical personnel that could substantiate their illogical advertising claims. In the case of RJ Reynolds, their Medical Relations Division was housed in the offices of their advertising agency.

The petroleum oil industry, the other nefarious harbinger of death, has taken many pages from tobacco's advertising playbook, especially the use of doctors to support their invented claims and pseudo scientific research. The big difference is Big Oil's misuse of the "other" kind of doctors to advance their misinformation. Big Oil likes those with a PhD or a JD after their name.

Unfortunately for the health and well-being of the world, it's working pretty good for Big Oil, even though the PhD and JD "doctors" they're using seem to be devoid of any practical knowledge of ethanol production, internal combustion engines, or day-to-day business.

On the other hand, the oil industry and their quack spokespeople generally don't oppose electric vehicles because they know that electric vehicles are no real threat to the oil industry. It may become a real threat in the 22nd or 23rd century, but for the coming decades of this century electric passenger vehicles are simply an expensive curiosity.

This person is Bernard L. Weinstein. I think he may be the most heavily credentialed of the oil industry spokespeople that I've ever seen. You can do your own Google search, but when I tell you that this guy's academic credentials are impressive, I mean that they are knock-down drop-dead out-of-the-universe impressive.

The problem is, I don't think he knows what he's talking about when it comes to ethanol, alt fuels, and energy...at least as far as I can judge from reading an article he wrote for Investor's Business Daily in August 2016. The title of his article is "It's Time To Rethink The Ethanol Mandate." This, of course, is how I arrived at the title to this article, as indicated at the top. (Doc Weinstein's story can be found athttp://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/its-time-to-rethink-the-ethanol-mandate)

If our country follows the "philosophies" set forth in Weinstein's IBD story then we will be kept chained to foreign oil, grow our national debt, and continue to allow the oil industry to force poison down our throats...and I'm not just talking about figurative poison, I mean real deadly poison.

All modern passenger vehicles in the United States (and many other countries) can use ethanol as its primary fuel. At the most, vehicles manufactured since the mid-1990's would require nothing more than a computer software update to permit an easy and safe transition to E50 or higher ethanol-gasoline blends. Such adoption would immediately make it possible to meet all emission requirements anticipated for the next few decades, right now.

On the contrary, Doctor, research has shown that the vast overwhelming majority of vehicles on the road today are unharmed by ethanol-gasoline blends above 10%. And global on-road use of higher ethanol-gasoline blends have proven the research to be correct. What's more, damage that could be done to the relatively minor number of vehicles that are not ethanol compatible can be overcome with minor parts replacements that can be accomplished during routine maintenance. And, to top it all off, no one - not even me - has suggested that we remove ethanol-free gasoline from the marketplace, so for them what can afford to own a beautiful classic/antique car that rarely gets used, they will always have a fuel they are more comfortable with.

An example of the attempt to denigrate ethanol was the report released in mid-August by another quack professor, John DeCicco. Although DeCicco's August claims were nothing new for him (he's made the same claims earlier), he was again soundly rebutted by reports, such as those from MichBio and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Unless Bernard Weinstein and his related institutions are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the oil industry for his endorsement there is no reason or excuse for him to write his IBD article. As I've written in a previous article, this kind of ignorant endorsement makes a mockery of our academic institutions. READ MORE and MORE (Mercola.com)