By Dr. Linda Rosenstock

Objective scientific research, often used as the basis for policy decisions, is increasingly under attack by vested interests attempting to control the outcome or impact of research.

As government agencies, academic centers, and researchers affiliated with them provide an increasing share of the science base for policy decisions, they are also subject to efforts to politicize or silence objective scientific research.

Such actions increasingly use sophisticated and complex strategies that put evidence-based policy making at risk.

A wide array of vested interests-those who, for whatever reason, are committed to a predetermined outcome independent of the evidence-may drive the undermining of sound science to forestall the policy implications that would necessarily follow.

These interests, which are often financial but may also be emotional, ideologic, and political, may be acting alone or in combination. Although economic interest is a common motivation and may drive both corporations and individuals (e.g., lawyers, physicians), emotional interests have played an increasing role in undermining sound science to achieve their desired ends (as in the case of victims' groups).

The role of corporate interests has been best reported, at least in part because of the significant economic resources corporations can bring to bear to influence policy outcomes.

This trend of meddling with science to achieve predetermined outcomes has serious implications for researchers at academic institutions and government agencies as well as for the public at large. We would like to think that the science used to make decisions that affect all of our lives is pure - unfortunately, that is increasingly not the case.

Although growing more sophisticated and complex, attacks on science are not new. To save his life, Galileo was forced to publicly renounce his belief that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe.

Today, a variety of tactics including economic manipulation, delay, hidden identities and harassment are used to undermine sound science to achieve a desired end.

An example would be the National Cancer Institute consensus panel concluded that the science was inadequate to support mammography for routine screening for breast cancer in women aged 40-49 years.

Yet, in response to external pressure from a variety of vested interest groups with financial and emotional commitments to screening, the science was revisited and repackaged, resulting in the recommendation that women in their 40s be screened every one to two years.

The authors note that between 1965 and 1995 the proportion of federal funding of health research and development dropped by almost half, to 34 percent, while industry's financial support increased more than two-fold to 52 percent of the total $35.8 billion expended.

Moreover, nearly 12 percent ($1.5 billion) of research funds to academic institutions now come from the corporate sector.

There are many types of vested interests - financial, emotional, ideological or political - in addition to corporate interests. But corporations and the significant economic resources they can use to influence policy outcomes have been the most thoroughly documented.

The authors suggest that to ensure the appropriate use of scientific evidence and the protection of the scientists who provide it, institutions and individuals must give deferential response to honest scientific challenges versus those from evident vested interests, build and diversify partnerships, assure the transparency of funding sources, agree on the rules for publications, and distinguish the point where science ends and policy begins.

American Journal of Public Health, January 2002 92: 14-18