While it’s true that many foods that use seed oils—such as packaged snacks and french fries—are unhealthy, they also tend to be high in refined carbohydrates, sodium, and sugar. “Sure, if you cut back on these foods, chances are you’re going to feel better,” Crosby said. But these other components, not the seed oils themselves, are the culprit behind weight gain and other negative health outcomes.

That said, the title really should be "Scientist dismisses claims ..." (singular) as it's a press release that quotes a single scientist who no longer works for Harvard and who asserts that no scientific papers find the seed oils to have health risks.

He may well be correct in that assertion, but that has to be taken as hearsay.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/healthy-eating/do-see...

which actually not only mentions scientific papers including big meta-studies, but actually links to them. That's rare these days. Maybe the consumer reports article should be the main article, though.

As you note, there's plenty of evidence that a high fat diet causes assorted health issues. Seed oils specifically are not a disproportionately strong culprit.

That hits hard where it hurts.

Now let's talk about your ulterior motives, Sir.

Eg https://www.npr.org/2025/06/19/nx-s1-5405595/claims-that-see...

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others have said that seed oils are poisoning Americans. The medical community mostly rejects those claims, but they are causing problems for farmers.

The MSG-scam, the alleged link between autism and vaccination and the seed oil craze each go back to single persons who published claims that for some reason went viral.

In my limited experience, claims like these (flat Earth, Moon Hoax, chemtrails...) went viral because they were outlandish, unsupportable claims not backed by science and sometimes even contradicting personal observation. Some people (and I'd say it's more likely to be scientifically not very literate persons) have a predisposition to latch onto bull crap. Let's call people with this trait '(social(ly)) influenceables' because they're frequently the audience to whatever social influencers choose to spew out.

You could present an influenceable with a multiple choice test where possible or plausible theories are presented as answers next to a highly improbable or impossible one, and they sure as hell will agree with the improbable one.

So this (if my impression is not skewed, which is very possible) would suggest that while not very scientifically literate, influenceable persons still have an acute sense for what counts as generally accepted and what counts as fringe theory. They don't have to, and they wouldn't (apart from the ongoing background activity of rumors that always float through the hearsay space). But we're not living in ordinary times, our society is in deep crisis, and for some reason, as in the 1930s, fringe theories and mysticism seem to have become attractive again.

Well, apparently attractive enough for the U.S. government to peddle outlandish health-related theories.

The same traces are found in de-cafeined coffee and many d’avoir extracts.