Some unfortunate, but probably unsurprising news today - Peter and I have decided that we will no longer be publishing Obesity Panacea on Scienceblogs. Future posts will be found on our new site at http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypancea. We have come to this decision for a number of reasons, but the recent PepsiCo advertorial played the largest part.
For a full explanation of our decision, click here.
The RSS feed has been updated, so subscribing to our feed here on Scienceblogs will still bring you all of the content at our new home. If you experience any problems with the feed, please don't hesitate to contact us by email, twitter, or by leaving a comment on either site.
I would just like to say that aside from the past week, our time here at Scienceblogs has been extremely positive thanks to the terrific readers here at Scienceblogs and to our former sciblings. Thanks especially to Abbie from ERV and Scicurious (formerly of Neurotopia), for openly campaigning for our addition to the network, as well as Bora Zivkovic and Dave Munger for their advice during the move.
Thanks again, and we hope you will continue the discussion at our new digs.
Travis
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Sorry to see you go. I hope Sb learned the lesson.
My opinion is that it's OK if PepsiCo wants to give money to Sb, but they should then stay out of creating or editing content completely. That would give them the benefit of actually being able to say they offer unbiased support for furthering the public conversation around the sciences. That would have been the win-win for Sb and PepsiCo.
But they didn't do that. Instead, the fanatic devotees of the Religion of Corporatism laid giant turds in the space yet again. Everything in their universe has to be a sales job, all literature in their universe has to be branding propaganda, and they really fouled up the space wherein an actual beneficial relation could have been established.
As I said, I hope they learned the lesson. Probably the Sb folks did. As for PepsiCo, I think they will probably go on looking for other victims to use as thinly disguised advertising outlets on the web. I don't think they are smart enough to figure it out.
Of course Pepsico has to use everything as marketing. If they ever let anyone critically analyze e.g. the effect of large-dose HFCS on metabolic syndrome, they'd have themselves a huge shareholder lawsuit.
Leaving serves no purpose because it has no symbolic value. They didn't hurt you by bringing on the Food Frontiers blog and you won't hurt them by leaving. Your blog just isn't that important. You're just making your blog harder to find. Sb was clearly helping you more than you them.
Fact is that people, including the people at Sb screw up ... get used to it. You could stay, stay engaged, and help them not screw up but instead you flee like a frightened child, or a person who can't be bothered to stay engaged in a community.
Oh well, I'll bookmark your new site but fact is that if your not on the Sb 24 hour scroll I won't be reading your blog. There is just too much good stuff on the scroll to leave much time for other sources. And while I read your blog every time it came up on the Sb scroll fact is your blog isn't really illuminating or informative enough to make a special effort to read. As part of the Sb collective you get read. On your own, not so much.
See ya.
Actually, I think losing self-important commenters like Art is a net plus for most bloggers. It's just sad they had to leave Scienceblogs to make that happen.
Whether or not your departure has "symbolic value" doesn't matter one bit; it's what you feel you need to do, and I completely understand. I'm vastly more interested in the valuable content you provide than your place (or lack thereof) in Science Blogs community.
Following you back to your original site is as easy as updating my bookmark, so no worries about losing this reader!
I've learned quite a bit from your informative, lively, and fun posts, and look forward to learning more in days to come.
p.s. I've forwarded links to Obesity Panacea to a few friends that I think might be interested. So hopefully you'll get one or two more readers to replace Art. Cheers!
Congratulations!
I've been a long-time reader and this is the first time I've felt truly compelled to comment, because I think you deserve to be lauded for taking a stand against the root causes of obesity, in addition to the wonderful research that you highlight.
It is not right for corporations to covertly infiltrate academic information portals such as this. The scientific integrity of your blog will only be improved by leaving this host.
Keep up the excellent work guys.
I've been reading your blog since it came to Scienceblogs, and I must say that I'm sorry to see you leave over the Pepsi fiasco. Obesity Panacea was both interesting and relevant (to my diet goals), and I wouldn't have known it existed if you hadn't come to SB.
Good luck.
It's a shame that you have to leave just because the pepsi case, but i will make sure i will keep up with you in your new site
If any blog on Sb would be compelled to leave because of Pepsi, it's this one.
I mean, if you blog about the Bhopal disaster, you don't exactly want Dow Chemical propaganda appearing alongside your blog.
As a health practitioner I see the influences of corporate trade on a daily basis where general physicians are prescribing rather than advising patients towards making healthy lifestyle choices. This is just a small example of that permeation into other facets of society. There will always need to be a balance between the ones that help support sites like this and those how question those who support the sites - catch 22!..as if either of these were far dominant, where would we be today?
j'adores votre blog, je viens le lire tout les jours.
It's sad to see you guys leaving this science's blog as I really enjoy your stories.. in any relation , there is a beginning and there will be an end, it's a matter of when .. you guys did a very good job, will look forward to visit your new blog.
I have really enjoyed your information sorry to see you leave SB.