[imihai1988]

I think the downvotes might have something to do with your dismissive attitude.

How is the nationality of the lecturer (w/ a diploma) a relevant fact? Why the "... ok" reaction? Was is more credible if the lecturer was based in SF ? Is medicine different if you're not from SF ? Are you automatically bad at everything you do if not from SF? As for the "invented by NASA", i do think they were referring to this:

In 1974, the World Health Organization described spirulina as "an interesting food or super food" for multiple reasons, rich in iron and protein, and is able to be administered to children without any risk," considering it "a very suitable food."[52] The United Nations established the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition in 2003.[53]

In the late 1980s and early 90s, both NASA (CELSS)[54] and the European Space Agency (MELiSSA)[55] proposed spirulina as one of the primary foods to be cultivated during long-term space missions. ( source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplemen... )

[privateSFacct]

"How is the nationality of the lecturer (w/ a diploma) a relevant fact?" -If you are not familiar with the issues here I can't be that helpful.

The quality of academic institutions and systems varies widely on a nation by nation basis. This is the issue I guess, a site like this and you are claiming no difference between countries.

Note that many top US scientists come from other countries, so its not the nationality of the scientist that is critical but the system they operate within, and the issues with academic integrity in China, Africa and yes, Romania are reasonably well known. Even the US and UK have struggled, and have tons more resources (some struggles relate to their overseas programs).

Hiring your own graduates is sometimes considered a bit of a weak sign in academia as well.

It's the totality of all these factors, bogus "endorsements" by big name media orgs (BBC), medical doctor endorsements from overseas doctors that practice relatively niche medicine (cannabis practice), and scientific research that seems to take any paper written anywhere and treat it equally.

[imihai1988]

"If you are not familiar with the issues here I can't be that helpful". So you are not familiar either ? Or is that you don't really feel like spending time actually answering the question instead of deflecting ? You do seem to have enough knowledge to dismiss a paper based solely on the "system they operate in"

"The quality of academic institutions and systems varies widely on a nation by nation basis. This is the issue I guess, a site like this and you are claiming no difference between countries."

I made no such claims. What I did however was question your reaction when seeing a romanian academic as the author of a scientific paper and that is all.

"and the issues with academic integrity in China, Africa and yes, Romania are reasonably well known".

Mind sharing some insight on this ? I'm genuinly interested. That seems like a very loose enumeration created strictly to get your point across, not being related in any way other than not being US.

[privateSFacct]

Sure. To get you started...

An imperfect measure is to just get a sense of where a countries top university is ranked.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

is one. US news is another. In all cases top Romanian institutions are all 500+ down the list. That is pretty bad. South Africa for example has much better universities (150 - 200 range) with UCT (and that's true - UCT has a good reputation).

https://wenr.wes.org/2017/12/academic-fraud-corruption-and-i...

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/07/02/the-plagiarism-in...

Can I ask if you have lived or worked overseas (outside of core EU/US countries)

US has issues in its for profit colleges and universities among others as well so it's not accurate that all US institutions are strong. I would have reacted the same way if I recognized a the article as being from a predatory journal (https://beallslist.weebly.com/)

Note, I'm looking at the website as a whole, and the claims it is making. This includes endorsements by the BBC, endorsements by medical doctors, and "scientifically proven" "superfoods" that "dramatically decrease LDL-C, triglycerides, and total cholesterol while raising HDL-C"

In each case I looked into the support was not great. In other words, this issue is about the supposedly unfair treatment of the site relative to other sources of medical and health knowledge. And my point here is that of the quick indicators I looked at, none looked that good.

Can you not be bothered to look at the other points I made when evaluating the sites quality?