Edwards Marc A. - Science for sale: how the US government uses powerful corporations and leading universities to support government policies, silence top scientists, jeopardize our health, and protect corporate profits

Copyright 2014 by David L. Lewis

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-5107-4310-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4317-5

Printed in the United States of America

Authors Proceeds go to the Nonprofit

National Whistleblowers Center (www.whistleblowers.org)

This book is dedicated to my wife, Kathy, the love of my life,
and to our children, Josh and Jedd, our greatest joy.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Mayor: The matter in question is not a purely scientific one; it is a complex affair; it has both a technical and an economic side. As a subordinate official, you have no right to express any conviction at odds with that of your superiors.

Dr. Stockman: What I am doing, I am doing in the name of truth and for the sake of my conscience

Ibsen, An Enemy of the People, 1882

S cientific progress and the advancement of civilization are inextricably linked. At the threshold of the third millennium the virtuous cycle of public support and investment in science, which has yielded multifold returns via improved quality and quantity of life, has been eroded at a most inopportune momentsound science is the best hope for saving humankind from itself.

Ibsens classic An Enemy of the People, illustrates the dangers of consensus science under the influence of institutions. Heroic Dr. Stockman, who sacrifices his career and personal standing to protect the innocent from harm, discovers that the scientific truth offends self-serving bureaucrats and powerful economic interests, and is soon denounced as a lunatic and An enemy of the people for defending the truth. Unfortunately, scientists have been very poor students of their own history, and suffer from misplaced moral overconfidence in their enterprise, institutions and judgment, which have always been subject to fraud, misconduct and the delusion of crowds as chronicled brilliantly by Ibsen. Success in modern science has become too dependent on networking and teamwork, appeasing group pressures in the name of cohesion and expediencescientific dissent and skepticism that play critical roles in good science are rarely encouraged or even tolerated.

The experiences and career of Dr. David Lewis, like the fictional Dr. Stockman, exemplify the type of heroic action that will be necessary if modern science is to become self-correcting. His work provides important insights to those who care about the scientific enterprise, and is a call to action for brave souls capable of sacrificing to preserve the integrity and promise of science for future generations. David highlights a pernicious threat to science which he first defined and personally named, institutional scientific misconduct, in which science has little to do with the seeking of truth and serving the public good, but rather, is conscripted to perpetuate the power/policies of institutions via conjuring of pseudo-scientific illusions. He defines institutional scientific misconduct as follows:

Institutional Scientific Misconduct or, in the case of research, Institutional Research Misconduct, is the fraudulent manipulation of science by government agencies, corporations and academic institutions to support government policies and industry practices. It often involves the suppression of credible scientific research by using false allegations of scientific or ethical misconduct against honest scientists who document the adverse effects of government policies and industry practices on public health and the environment.

Institutional scientific misconduct has gone largely unappreciated and unreported because its practitioners are often the very agencies we have empowered to police scientific integrity in one way or another. And, at least superficially, they appear to lack a direct profit motive that would explain or cause scrutiny of their unethical actions. Many still mistakenly believe that such motives are a necessary inducement to incentivize scientific misconduct. In my opinion, the abuses and dangers of institutional scientific misconduct far exceed those arising from misconduct in industrial science, as society has developed certain checks and balances to control industrial science abuses while still preserving its undeniable benefits to society.

After the dimensions of the hazard were exposed in an award winning Washington Post investigative report in early 2004, the agencies and their minions published a series of reports relying on false or non-existent data, which created an illusion that the unprecedented exposures and the agencies criminal actions had not poisoned a single man, woman or child.

It took more than six years of personal effort and a U.S. Congressional investigation to finally discover that the agencies data, which they purportedly relied on for their landmark conclusions and publications, had strangely disappeared if it ever existed in the first place.

I mention my own experiences because they are relatively well-documented, the information has been thoroughly vetted in the press and in Congress, and before living through it myself I would never have believed it possible. Having grown up worshipping at the altar of science, I never even thought to question the motives of government agencies, the policemen that we pay to protect us, and who would seem to have no financial motive to behave unethically. Indeed, when I first heard of David Lewis and his battles with the EPA in the 1990s, I was too busy establishing my own career to pay any attention, much less delve into the details and sort out the truth. That is the reality of scientific whistleblowing. Whistleblowers and heroic scientists, are always destined for singular journeys, because even our most supportive colleagues have little choice but to be bystanders and there is no higher authority in science that can serve as an impartial judge and jury. As David found, sadly, a courtroom run by non-scientists is often the only recourse. It takes great courage, persistence and a supportive family to see matters through to a conclusion, as David did in his years as a successful EPA whistleblower.

As is his nature, above and beyond his documented successes in demonstrating shortcomings in CDC infection-control policies and exposing wrong-doing at EPA, David does not shy away from new, challenging and controversial subjects. The book details his personal journey to try and better understand details of the Brian Deer and Wakefield drama, a subject on which, after decades of painful struggle, establishment science has reached a consensus verdict that Wakefield was guilty of scientific misconduct. Davids work and belief suggests that this consensus is an over-reach supported by dubious data and interpretations. As a scientist with a newly discovered appreciation of history, I can only say that there are many prior precedents that should give one pause whenever institutions harshly judge their critics, or those who are reporting results inconsistent with the political winds of the day. Our institutions, which fancy themselves as impartial, beyond reproach and worthy of passing judgment on others, never seem to find that their own egregious actions ever rise to the level of scientific misconduct.