On first glance, it seems pretty bad, but on second thought I read more of a kind of paranoia in it. Almost every set of data can be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on the context in which the data is placed. People can twist and subvert data in ways that are very hard to contradict. It's often easier to sell lies than to sell truths and I sense an extreme fear that they have to spend all of their time defending complicated truths against simple falsehoods.

Edit: by which I do not mean they are right and the skeptics are the ones subverting the data and convincing others with simple falsehoods. You may fear your opponent doing that while doing it yourself. The above can be read with the sides interchanged. I'm merely pointing out that reality is underdetermined by data, that truths are sometimes hard to sell and that that leads all sides to fear the other side undermining them in ways they consider immoral.

Plain human psychology may be enough to explain this, without invoking all kinds of conspiracies. Conspiracies are extremely unlikely, because there will always be someone that blabs. A few people imploring others to do immoral things does not a conspiracy make.