As the current measles vaccine flap shows, bad science (from the fraudulent to the sloppy) sometimes pollutes public health policy discussions. Especially environmental health policy. Mainstream media with a weak understanding of the subject can make it worse.

"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The SpaceX company has called off Sunday's launch of a deep-space observatory."

"Boys and girls, are global temperatures rising or falling?"

"Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory — injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States."

"The World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that 2014 was the hottest year in a historical record of global temperature dating from 1880. That finding confirms an announcement made last month by two American scientific agencies and one in Japan."

"Amid growing concern about global weather patterns, a rocket roared into space Saturday carrying a NASA satellite that will give scientists new tools to forecast weather, track drought and monitor climate change."

"A fierce debate is raging in West Virginia over a new set of science standards for public schools that would acknowledge climate change as real and man-made."

Congressional Republicans plan to re-launch some bills they fielded last year -- bills attacking the science on which environmental and health regulations are based. But this time, with GOP control of the Senate, the bills may clear Congress."

"A climate-change skeptic at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has relied on grants from fossil-fuel energy interests apparently failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest in a newly released paper, according to a complaint by a climate watchdog group."

"Some forecasters have projected a record snowstorm for the Northeast in the coming hours, which isn't exactly the sort of thing that makes people think about global warming."