In the Chicago Tribune last weekend, David Michaels, director of the project on scientific knowledge and public policy at George Washington University, attacked several big industries for employing "mercenary scientists" to defeat regulation of hazardous products. These scientists are paid to emphasize uncertainty (a relatively easy task when absolute scientific certainty is a rarity) in public hazard product cases, such as cigarettes, aspirin, and asbestos.
A cigarette executive in 1969 unwisely put the strategy on paper: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."
Big Tobacco has lost all credibility, but its practices have proliferated.
Disingenuous demands for proof drown out reasoned calls for precaution in public health. In field after field, year after year, conclusions that might support regulation are always disputed. Animal data are deemed not relevant, human data not representative, and exposure data not reliable.
Whatever the story—global warming, sugar and obesity, secondhand smoke, plastics chemicals that may disrupt endocrine function—scientists in the "product defense industry" will manufacture uncertainty about it.
And the damage is immense - hundreds of children died or were disabled from Reye's Syndrome caused by aspirin taken by children with viral illnesses. Once the labels were finally mandated, Reye's cases have dropped to a handful each year. But even though the CDC had issued the warning some two years prior, the industry's scientists argued there was no definitive proof, and the label regulation was delayed.
The scientific studies these firms do for their clients are like the accounting work that some Arthur Andersen accountants did for Enron (until both companies went bankrupt): They appear to play by the rules of the discipline, but their objective is to help corporations frustrate regulators and prevail in product liability litigation.
With rogue scientists for hire to obfuscate and deny for big business, it's worthwhile to remember how important the civil justice system is to helping regulators and protecting the public from numerous hazards. Litigation can draw regulators' attention to overlooked or previously-approved products (witness the FDA-approved Vioxx case), as well as provide grounds for new regulation of products. Restricting the civil justice system only hurts the public interest, to the advantage of big business.
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