Science and Money

Every now and then, I run across an older news story that I missed because it was never reported in the usual sources. Such an article was in NPR back in September of last year: "50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat".

The story:

In the 1960s, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat, according to a newly published article in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation wanted to "refute" concerns about sugar's possible role in heart disease. The SRF then sponsored research by Harvard scientists that did just that. The result was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967, with no disclosure of the sugar industry funding.

The sugar-funded project in question was a literature review, examining a variety of studies and experiments. It suggested there were major problems with all the studies that implicated sugar, and concluded that cutting fat out of American diets was the best way to address coronary heart disease.

The authors of the new article say that for the past five decades, the sugar industry has been attempting to influence the scientific debate over the relative risks of sugar and fat.

Read the entire article, which makes a solid case against food industry influence on dietary research.

This is just another example of science being exploited by groups of people for their own purposes. If you need to understand the money motive for other science scams, just look at Al Gore's green investments. From the Washington Post in 2012:

The man who was within sight of the presidency 12 years ago has transformed himself, becoming perhaps the world’s most renowned crusader on climate change and a highly successful green-tech investor.

Just before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million. 

One can argue that Gore simply invested in what he believed. But to go out and promote a scientific theory which would improve his investment results, without disclosing said investments, is at least disingenuous, if not fraudulent.  

The problem here is science has become beholden to moneyed interests. Even government money comes with strings: If science can prove there is a problem which requires government funding, that influences the scientific results towards proving the problem, regardless of whether it actually exists.

Science is no longer about the lone scientist sitting in his lab and running tests to simply prove or disprove a hypothesis, all according to the scientific method. Nowadays, some scientists are no different than prostitutes, offering whatever the highest bidder wants for a quick buck. It is sad to see how far science has sunk.