Manufactured uncertainty and product defense

And so it goes today, in industry after industry, with study after study, year after year. Data is disputed, data has to be reanalyzed. Animal data is deemed not relevant, human data not representative, exposure data not reliable. More research is always needed. Uncertainty is manufactured. Its purpose is always the same: shielding corporate interests from the inconvenience and economic consequences of public health protections.

David Michaels

Preparation

Required

Do the following prior to the next class meeting (in the recommended order).

  • Read Manufactured Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public’s Heath and Environment by David Michaels. [PDF] [Readings] This is Chapter 4 of Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (2008). Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance. Stanford University Press.

Optional

  • Michaels, D. (2005). Doubt is their product: industry groups are fighting government regulation by formenting scientific uncertainty. Scientific American, 292(6). [PDF]

The ways that science can be bent are both ingenious and insidious

Stephen Bocking

Skewing Science

In Alternatives Journal (2009), Stephen Bocking reviews four books expose how government and industry manipulate science to fit their needs. These are

  • Diagnosis: Mercury Money, Politics, and Poison by Jane M. Hightower.
  • The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis.
  • Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research by Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner.
  • Doubt is Their Product: How Industries Assault on Science Threatens Your Health by David Michaels.

Stephen Bocking ends his review in this way:

Collectively, these four books illuminate two challenges of environmental policy.

One is to avoid defining political questions as matters of science, because that implies unrealistic standards of proof are needed before action can be taken, while also privileging those who are able to buy expertise.

The second relates to making decisions in the context of uncertainty. Acting in a complex world means gathering information, evaluating the weight of evidence, taking precautions and adapting to change. Too often, the chosen approach has been to wait for absolute proof – with the consequence being a toxic environment and loss of life. Even uncertain knowledge implies a responsibility to act. (Bocking, 2009)

Discussion

Career civil servants and political appointees

Within federal agencies, there is a continuous battle between political appointees and career civil servants over the scientific justification for the promulgation and enforcement of health and safety standards. Most of these struggles are rarely recognized outside the agencies. However, they have a negative impact on public health as well as morale within agencies. Corporations and business lobbies have used every political means to delay, weaken, and block the issuance of health standards since worker, consumer, and environmental protection agencies were created in the early 1970s. (Infante, 2016).

Infante, P. F. (2016). The continuing struggle between career civil servants and political appointees in the development of government public health standards. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 22(4), 269-273. [HTML]

Edward Segal (April 12, 2021) Senior Contributor, Forbes. What Biden’s Nomination Of Doug Parker To Head OSHA Means For Business Leaders

Conflicts of Interest

A conflict of interest is a situation in which an individual’s personal interests – family, friendships, financial, or social factors – could compromise his or her judgment, decisions, or actions. (UCF Compliance and Ethics Newsletter)

The National Science Foundation informational web page on Conflicts of Interest begins as follows.

All members of the NSF staff are expected to adhere to high standards of ethical conduct. … The success of the NSF in performing its functions depends on the effectiveness and evenhandedness of its decision making processes. If judgments are warped or biased because of conflicting outside interests, the decision making process is compromised. NSF must continually earn the public’s confidence in its integrity. To do so, each NSF staff member must endeavor to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Careerism

Careerism is the policy or practice of advancing one’s career often at the cost of one’s integrity. (Mirriam-Webster)

Academic/scientific careerism is a situation where an academic or scientist pursues their own enrichment and self-advancement at the expense of honest inquiry, unbiased research and dissemination of truth to society or their students. (adapted from Wikipedia)

Careerism is a concern of both conservatives and progressives

In a blog post entitled “Careerism and Psychopathy in the US Military,” G. I. Wilson (Colonel, USMC, retired) writes:

I have observed the Department of Defense (DOD) all too closely for over three decades. It has become an overgrown bureaucracy committed to standing still for, if not actively promoting, poorly conceived policy agendas and hardware programs funded and supported by Congress. … For the careerists in America’s national security apparatus, it is all about awarding contracts and personal advancement, not winning wars.

Careerists serve for all the wrong reasons. They weaken national defense, robbing the military of its warrior ethos and driving away the highly principled mavericks that we need to reverse the decay. This can only be remedied by rekindling the time-honored principles of military service (i.e., duty, honor, country) among both officers and civilians.

For Your Notebook: What are the time-honored principles of government servants with scientist expertise?

Further Reading

David Michaels (2008). Doubt Is Their Product : How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2008. [SWEM Online]

Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research by Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy Wagner. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008.