In a new book, former Obama administration official David Michaels takes a look at how big corporations fund studies that promote pseudoscience in order to avoid regulations.He spoke to Vox's Sean Illing about why the practice has become more prominent in recent years.
“The Republican base has been acclimatized to be skeptical of mainstream science, and easily believe accusations that they are being manipulated by the deep state, the liberal media, and pointy-headed scientists,” Michaels says.
He said big corporations fund these studies to manufacture doubt around negative information that might be circulating about their product.
"...they hire scientists who appear to be reputable to produce or obscure evidence about the products they make. If there are studies or even suggestions that their product is dangerous, you can hire a scientist who will say, 'The evidence is in question,' or, 'The study is wrong,'" he continued.
"Corporations make sure those scientists get their opinions into what look like credible peer-reviewed journals, then they get picked up by newspapers, then they have the sound bites that commentators repeat, and that’s enough to convince people that there’s uncertainty. Not necessarily that the product is safe, but that the scientific evidence isn’t there."
Read the full interview over at Vox.
