In a world where science and information should be pillars of democracy, two recent cases highlight blatant hypocrisy. On the one hand, the journal Nature, long a bastion of peer-reviewed research, accuses independent journalists of “endangering public health” while pocketing millions from the pharmaceutical industry. On the other, in France, the Ministry of Culture is not renewing the CPPAP accreditation of France-Soir on the basis of a sloppy and unsigned administrative note, which analyzes barely 0.6% of the media’s articles and cites a now-retracted study. These cases, although geographically distant, draw a disturbing parallel: the stranglehold of elites on scientific and media discourse, with disregard for facts and transparency.
Nature, the magazine that preaches Integrity while hanging out with the devil
It all began with a scathing thread published on October 1, 2025, on X by Maryanne Demasi, an Australian investigative journalist with a PhD in biomedical sciences. A former ABC anchor and fellow of the Brownstone Institute, Demasi denounced an attempt at “character assassination” orchestrated by Nature, the world’s most prestigious scientific journal.
In an email sent by an editor of the journal, she is accused of belonging to an “anti-vaccine movement,” of “endangering public health” and of “profiting from the spread of misinformation.”
No evidence is provided: no articles cited, no named complaints, no clear definition of the term “anti-vaccine.” “Just blanket accusations aimed at character assassination,” Demasi writes.
This isn’t an isolated case. The same email was sent to figures like Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA technology and a member of the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Immunization Advisory Committee. Demasi sees this as a systematic smear campaign against independent voices scrutinizing the pharmaceutical industry. And for good reason: Nature is deeply embedded in the very conflicts of interest it claims to combat. The journal publishes vaccine research while raking in advertising revenue and sponsored content from the manufacturers themselves, such as Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Merck, and AstraZeneca. On its website, Nature touts these “pioneering partnerships” to “support science,” without ever quantifying the extent of this funding.
Demasi even requested disclosure of the magazine’s advertising revenue over the past decade, broken down by pharmaceutical corporations, government agencies, and NGOs—a request that remains unanswered.
The hypocrisy culminates in the “Proximal Origin” scandal. In March 2020, Nature Medicine (a subsidiary of Nature) published a paper concluding that SARS-CoV-2 could not have originated in a lab. Internal emails and Slack chats, however, reveal that the authors seriously doubted this theory and admitted that a lab origin was not excluded. Hundreds of scientists are now calling this paper a “political tract” disguised as science, and thousands have petitioned for its retraction—which the journal has refused to do.
Demasi ironizes: “Scientific consensus” and “peer review” are brandished as assets, but “consensus can be manufactured, and peer review is not a shield against corruption.” This “consensus policing” includes censoring the database on more than 700 peer-reviewed studies on the risks of mRNA vaccines (myocarditis, thrombosis), as Nicolas Hulscher denounces, accusing Nature of a “blackout” against vaccine critics—a shame for a journal that legitimizes tools like PubPeer, accused of harassment and funded bias.
This hypocrisy extends to the handling of scientific fraud. In July 2025, Nature published a glowing article on Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and PubPeer contributor, calling her a “fraud detector” for retractions like the 2006 Lesné study on Alzheimer’s. Yet, Bik is accused of egregious methodological errors, such as in a 2025 HAL report by Charles Vidal and Didier Raoult demonstrating that her claims of image duplication at the IHU Méditerranée Infection were based on biased analysis (only a 3% difference via GIMP and FAST Feature Detector). Omitting her past at uBiome (raided by the FBI for fraud in 2024), Nature also ignores the harassment complaints filed by the IHU against Bik and PubPeer, which ScienceGuardians called a “censorship platform.” An anonymous scientist quips: “This is really not what you expect from a reputable journal like Nature, it’s no longer science, but propaganda.” These omissions fuel suspicions of conflicts of interest, with funding such as the Einstein Foundation Prize ($200,000 for Bik and PubPeer, sponsored by Springer Nature) and NIH-pharma contracts, contrasting with the May 2025 US decree requiring scientific transparency.
In her detailed blog, Demasi backs up these accusations: critical studies are dismissed or buried, while pro-industry findings pass unchallenged. She cites her own investigations into journal-pharma links, retractions of “inconvenient” studies (such as those on hydroxychloroquine), and the use of industry-funded “fact checks” to discredit politically sensitive findings. Worse still, Nature provides a platform for figures like Lonni Besançon, a data visualization researcher with no medical credentials (PhD in human-computer interaction, no training in epidemiology or biomedical ethics), presented in 2025 as a “champion of scientific integrity.” Omitting his stalker behavior—vulgar tweets like “Your mother has gone Boomrang” or “Leave your mother out of this,” documented by Science Guardians and targeting experts like Didier Raoult—the Nature article portrays him as a hero without mentioning his systematic attacks on the IHU and its studies on hydroxychloroquine, nor his alliances with the “harassment sphere” exposed by France-Soir. A psychiatrist diagnoses narcissistic traits, explaining this aggressiveness that pollutes the scientific debate and discourages dissenting voices.
“When those who profit from pharmaceutical partnerships claim to police what is ‘outside the scientific consensus,’ public trust in science collapses,” she concludes.
France-Soir, the French media targeted by a phantom administrative note
Thousands of miles away, a striking parallel is emerging with France-Soir, a French online media outlet known for its citizen journalism and critical analyses of the management of the COVID-19 crisis. On June 26, 2024, the Joint Commission for Publications and Press Agencies (CPPAP) refused to renew its accreditation, thus depriving its donors of tax relief and threatening its economic survival – layoffs and non-renewal of fixed-term contracts in sight. The Ministry of Culture justified this decision by arguing that France-Soir lacks general interest and is “dangerous for the health of the French.”
The basis for this accusation? A 28-page memo from the Directorate General of Health (DGS), sent by Grégory Emery, a doctor with no listed scientific publications, and unsigned. This memo, dated May 7, 2024, and titled “Analysis of publications in the health section of the online site francesoir.fr,” claims to examine 14 articles on vaccines, but cites only 13 out of a total of 2,048 published in the health section—less than 1% of the corpus. It accuses France-Soir of disseminating” false information “ about the dangers, ineffectiveness, and costs of vaccines, without respecting the standards of scientific debate or legal procedures. Among the grievances: promotion of hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19, discouragement of HPV vaccination, and biased interpretation of official data. But the memo is full of flaws. First, her analysis is superficial: Emery did not contact the editors for a prior scientific debate, violating the principles of the scientific method. Second, she cites a false and probably fraudulent study by Pradelle and Lega , two Lyon academics, published by a journal of the Elsevier group. This study falsely claimed that 17,000 people would have died from taking hydroxychloroquine during Covid-19. It was retracted or discredited for its methodological biases, notably following several letters of concern to the editor.
France-Soir retorts that its articles are based on peer-reviewed studies and experts such as Professor Christian Perronne (cleared by the Order of Physicians) or Professor Michel Goldman, and that it opens its columns to pro-vaccine advocates such as Dr. Laurent Alexandre. A previous note from the DGS (September 2022), prepared by a consultant without scientific expertise (Harold Ferraguti of BearingPoint), had already served as the basis for the CPPAP’s refusal to renew in 2023. This non-renewal led to legal reprimands for censorship and abuse of power. The uneven response time (six weeks for the DGS, four for the media) and the ignorance of France-Soir‘s detailed counter-arguments complete the picture of a biased procedure.
A striking parallel: institutional censorship and conflicts of interest
The common thread between Nature’s approach to Demasi and Malone, and that of the authorities towards France-Soir is clear: institutions that self-proclaim themselves as guardians of scientific and media truth stifle dissenting voices with baseless accusations, while protecting their own interests. Nature invokes a “consensus,” fabricated to denigrate journalists like Demasi who criticize the authorities and the studies published in Nature, without citing a single source! While the journal and the Nature group themselves publish studies funded by pharmaceutical giants.
Similarly, the DGS and the Ministry of Culture brandish a botched note – unsigned, superficial, riddled with errors like the retracted Pradelle Lega study – to describe France-Soir as “dangerous to health”, without analyzing even 1% of its content.
In both cases, the lack of transparency is glaring: Nature refuses to disclose its pharmaceutical revenues, the DGS fails to sign its note, makes a partial and piecemeal analysis and ignores the rights of the defense.
And the stakes are the same: undermining public confidence in science and in the free press .
As an article in France-Soir points out, this “political censorship” aims to “kill the media and erase its critical voice”, aligned with citizen journalism that trusts the discernment of readers. Demasi, for her part, warns of a “system” where powerful magazines, linked to the industry, deploy “hatchet men” to discredit independents, rather than engaging in debate on the facts.
Towards urgent reform: for liberated science and a liberated press
Despite a decision by the Council of State validating the bias of the decision not to renew in 2024, the CPPAP orders a new decision to be taken, will not renew the accreditation of France-Soir , thus endangering its financial sustainability. For his part, Demasi calls for an investigation at the highest level, with the NIH under the direction of Jay Bhattacharya, to track down conflicts of interest and selective censorship.
These cases are a reminder that freedom of expression and scientific integrity are not negotiable. In the face of institutions that prefer control over transparency, it is time to support independent media and journalists like Demasi – not out of ideology, but out of a commitment to the truth.
Because, as France-Soir writes , « a public debate rather than censorship » is the only antidote to real disinformation.