Oh, I saw that fig leaf, I just realized that it’s meaningless. Whether or not someone includes the phrase in front of their assumptions makes absolutely no difference. It’s just a Rorschach test.

Edit: I suspect I’m wrong, adding it probably causes their assumptions to be given more weight for no reason, as happened here. Interesting observation, that’s in line with the research that disclosing conflicting interests actually causes people to weight the compromised advice more highly than they otherwise would.