Book Review

Rescuing Science from Politics: Regulation and the Distortion of Scientific Research

N Engl J Med 2007; 356:1484-1485April 5, 2007

Article

Rescuing Science from Politics: Regulation and the Distortion of Scientific Research
Edited by Wendy Wagner and Rena Steinzor. 304 pp. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006. $75 (cloth); $29.99 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-521-85520-4 (cloth); 978-0-521-54009-4 (paper).

The “pursuit of scientific truth, detached from the practical interests of everyday life, ought to be treated as sacred by every government, and it is in the highest interests of all that honest servants of truth should be left in peace.” Albert Einstein's profound admonition, directed at fascist governments and written as a plea to Alfredo Rocco, Minister of Justice and Education under Benito Mussolini, captures elegantly the spirit of the book edited by Wendy Wagner and Rena Steinzor. This compendium of 12 scholarly essays suggests that history is replaying itself in current politics in the United States, as is evident by the tension arising between the servants of scientific truth and special-interest groups that exploit law and politics for their own advantage. The instructive essays, which are grouped into three sections and preceded by a thoughtful introduction written by the editors, demonstrate how some risk-producing industries have taken advantage of the U.S. legal system to discredit scientific information that is derived from federal funding and to suppress potentially damaging information.

In the first section of the book, “Freedom and Independence,” Thomas McGarity highlights egregious methods of deconstructing scientific evidence. Risk-producing industries use the “corpuscular approach” of attacking scientific truth by deconstructing a body of evidence and destroying cause-and-effect links piecemeal. This approach was enshrined by the 2001 Data Quality Act, which permits risk-producing industries to challenge scientific reports such as one that focused on the role of greenhouse gases in global warming. In the same section, Katherine Squibb highlights legal maneuvers that corporations have used to exploit inherent uncertainties in science and to suppress adverse results that would undermine the financial standing of specific industries. Sheldon Krimsky focuses on the potential pitfalls of industry-sponsored research, in particular the influence of sponsorship on the outcome of clinical studies. Paul Fischer closes the first section, reporting compellingly from personal experience about how the powerful tobacco industry could levy major legal proceedings against an investigator whose work pointed out the dangers of marketing tobacco products to children.

The second section highlights the principles of transparency and honesty. Donald Hornstein points to new U.S. laws, such as the Data Quality Act and the Shelby Amendment, that provide private industries with tools to attack the findings of publicly supported research. The Shelby Amendment allows any person, under the Freedom of Information Act, access to all data produced by federally funded projects. However, it does not allow access to data from privately financed projects. In his essay, Carl Cranor exposes the significant differences between the practice of science and the judiciary rules of evidence, which lead to the dismissal of research conclusions simply because they are never final. Holly Doremus and Vern Walker, in separate chapters, point to the misuse of incomplete scientific information in making decisions that affect natural resources. David Adelman ends the second section with a discussion of methods of analyzing scientific evidence, such as Bayesian statistical inference.

In the third section of the book, “A Public Infrastructure for Science,” three essays provide the perspectives. David Michaels and Sidney Shapiro separately address peer review as it pertains to transparency in regulatory policies from the scientific and legal perspectives. Both authors emphasize the problems with peer review that is biased in favor of special interests. John Applegate wraps up the section with an analysis of the deficiencies in the legal system that allow companies to prevent potentially incriminating information from being exposed. Applegate proposes that it would be in the public's interest for the government to take more ownership of research that affects public welfare and would not otherwise be conducted because it is not in the private sector's interest to do so. In their conclusion, the editors provide sound recommendations that reiterate Einstein's plea that the pursuit of scientific truth be held sacred. At a time when the United States government is pushing the limits of the law in the interest of risk-producing industries, this book provides a much-needed scholarly analysis of our state of affairs and makes it clear that our policies require recalibration in the interest of public welfare.

Chi V. Dang, M.D., Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205
cvdang@jhmi.edu