I think that you may have received that link from me. I put it in the del.icio.us bookmarks that go into my RSS feed since I found it interesting.

While I understand your problems with scientific methodology, I think the greater problem is with the media misinterpreting the results of said studies. I was never a scientist, but I used to analyze statistics in the electronics industry to find problems with our products and processes. One thing that I learned is that laymen (including managers who think that they're experts) do not understand the context of a particular statistic, and therefore misinterpret what it means. I believe that reporters are especially guilty of this when looking at scientific studies. Science reporters rarely have any background in the subjects that they are reporting on, making the problem worse.

The media is also loooking to get an attention-grabbing headline to sell newspapers or whatever, and often skews its interpretations to grab the reader's attention. It sells more papers when you have the headline "Scientists say that X causes cancer" rather than "Researcher X in a study at Harvard concludes that there is a 0.2% statistical increase of cancer risk after injesting Y(probably colossal) amount of substance X for Z number of years when combined with risk factors A, B, and C." This is why I tell people to not base any personal behavior change on the report of some particular study reported in the media. The interpretation presented is probably wrong, either through ignorance or deliberate manipulation of the facts.

This is especially true with hotbutton subjects such as (I am afraid to even bring it up) global warming. You see misinterpretation both deliberate and accidental in media reports that come down on both sides of the issue. A single hot day or even a single hot year does not necessarily signal a trend. Conversely, the presence of a snowball somewhere in the world or a cold winter does not eliminate the possiblity of an upward trend. One data point tells you nothing about trends either way. Many other factors also come into play and it is difficult to isolate a single factor such as "greenhouse gases." None of this matters when reporters (or even bloggers) are trying to push a particular conclusion. They want their zinger headline, and leave no room for doubt in their conclusions.

While media reports such as the above mentioned raw milk article are often interesting, when it comes to the science behind it I know to not take a reporter's conclusions too seriously. I must go to the original study to see what the researcher was actually saying, and only then can I begin to evaluate his or her conclusions and methodology.