PR firm offers to ‘fake’ science

by Dr. David Lewis
Focus for Health

Excerpts:

Environmental groups in Wilmington, NC are trying to stop chemical companies from polluting their drinking water with perfluorochemicals, called PFCs, which are highly persistent and magnified up the food chain. They are an increasingly common contaminate in food, water and household dusts. DuPont de Nemours & Company, for example, discharges a PFC abbreviated PFOA.

Numerous studies have linked PFCs to genetic and reproductive damage, developmental problems in unborn children, and cancer. The scientific literature, therefore, contains ample evidence that chemical companies are to blame. In a letter to DuPont, The Weinberg Group, a leading public relations firm, offered to reshape the scientific literature.

The firm stated that it would “construct” a scientific study to establish that PFOA is safe and provides “real health benefits.” Constructing studies with predetermined outcomes is not science in any sense of the word. And any benefits reported in the scientific literature from such a study would be nothing but fake science.

Unfortunately, the peer-reviewed scientific literature is filled with fake science. During my tenure as a research scientist at EPA and the University of Georgia, I observed how politics and commercial interests often lead to science, and all of its very real benefits, being skewed to support government policies, industry practices and commercial products.

Read the full article at Focus for Health.

David Lewis is an internationally recognized research microbiologist whose work on public health and environmental issues, as a senior-level Research Microbiologist in EPA’s Office of Research & Development and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia, has been reported in numerous news articles and documentaries from TIME magazine and Reader’s Digest to National Geographic.