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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
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