Without getting too off topic, the cholesterol scare is a very apt analogue for the climate scare.
Ansel Keys did some dodgy research on saturated fat consumption in the 1960's and produced a very sexy chart showing a direct correlation between saturated fat consumption and heart disease. Since it looked so neat, everyone jumped in on it. Later it was found that he had left out confounding data eg. countries with high fat consumption and low CHD, and low fat consumption and high CHD.
By this time scientific and more importantly big money had lined up behind the cholesterol story, with cholesterol lowering drugs, foods, cookbooks even and a seamless wall of propaganda that very few tried to refute. It would be career ending to go against the 'war on cholesterol'.
In the early 1980's a London cardiologist by the name of John Yuld published research pointing to arterial inflammation as being the culprit. According to this theory, cholesterol is associated with CHD but only as a secondary response of the body to inflammation.
Unfortunately, money and 'established science' were too strong and it took another 30 or so years for things to change.
So, 'established science' doesn't count for as much as many think it does.
