The Journal ran articles on the benefits of exercise in reducing the incidence of illness and health problems. One of the articles discussed the work of a researcher, Paul Smith,who believes that the guidelines for how much exercise people should have is insufficient, since his data shows that higher amounts of exercise lead to better health outcomes.
But Paul William's work is shunned by others in the field and he is denied involvement in panels who review these guidelines because of the fear that if the public knew that more exercise was even better, many people would conclude they shouldn't bother exercising at all since it is too daunting an effort.
It is reminiscent of the government-led nutritional guidelines published in the 1950s which said fat should be reduced from your diet - but didn't differentiate between good fat like monosaturated fat vs. bad fat like saturated fat. Researchers at the time knew all fats weren't bad for people, but preferred a simpler message ("all fats are bad") to the correct message ("trans and saturated fats need to be reduced").
These dietary guidelines missed important nutritional information due to a desire to create a simple message. Simple, and wrong.
These examples illustrate why I'm skeptical when people speak of a "scientific consensus" as it relates to matters relating to public policy - it is very tempting to either impose your own values on the issue, like global warming, or to insist that a simpler, dumbed down explanation is better.
We deserve, and can handle, the truth - in all its complexity.
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