Since 2006, there has been a slow and steady drumbeat against trans fats in foods. Decades ago, when Natural Resources Defense Council and various other food fallacy groups latched onto saturated fats, we cautioned that the studies were epidemiological correlation, not science, and that the alternative might be worse.
That alternative ended up being trans fats, which were later also vilified, and we were in the odd position of noting, in the interest of being trusted guides on public health, that those weren't as bad as they were suddenly being portrayed either. Regardless, people wanted them out and companies started getting rid of them, to a point where the White House felt safe putting a de facto ban on them. A harmless declaration of victory in a battle that was already over.
While we are never going to side with unfairly limiting the free market using junk science, since the free market had basically already spoken, and we have long said trans fats have no nutritional value, we agreed it was probably time for them to go in everything except the rare treat, like donuts and such, which is all the government was doing.
Despite that being part of the public record, a blogger at a website named "The Intercept" claims we are part of some "dark money" conspiracy to defend trans fats. Their evidence? Someone at a site called The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) says the free market was already taking them out regardless of the conflicting beliefs about harm, so a ban violated their conservative principles. And one of their employees worked at the Council a decade ago. So therefore ACSH must be involved.
ACSH is in cahoots with a group this blogger claims is being funded by Big Tobacco? False. But we once got a donation from McDonald's, he claims, and oppose mandatory GMO labeling so therefore we must be this "dark money" that he and other "GMO Truthers" insist is a vast cabal of rich elites - exactly the opposite of reality, since NRDC makes more on the interest in its bank account in one day than ACSH will have for its budget this year.
If The Intercept truly wanted to do investigative journalism rather than the kind that just involves a quick look at Google and cobbling together the health journalism equivalent of UFO believer interviews, it would ask how NRDC got that $300 million in the bank, almost none of it accounted for, despite the fact that they have repeatedly been caught manufacturing health scares to line their substantial coffers.