PART I - FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE

Summary

This book opens with four chapters that explain how interested parties have abused the legal system to threaten scientific independence, undermine the objectivity and therefore the integrity of research, and, in some cases, threaten the careers of individual scientists. These abuses violate several basic, noncontroversial principles of scientific independence:

• Scientists must be able to conduct research without unjustified restrictions, including undue influence by research sponsors.

• Sponsors must never place restrictions or otherwise influence the design or conduct of a study in an attempt to obtain results favorable to their interests.

• Research must never be suppressed because it produces results that are adverse to a sponsor or other interested party.

• No publication or summary of research should be influenced – in tone or content – by the sponsoring entity.

• If vested interests use the legal system to harass scientists whose research or expert testimony calls into question the safety of their practices or products, the harassers must be held accountable with sanctions and must compensate injured scientists for the resulting interference with their research and potential damage to their reputations.

Part I begins with a survey by Professor McGarity of the various tools special interests have used to attack research in scientifically illegitimate ways when the research threatens their economic interests. McGarity explains how such attacks on individual research projects can also cause the “corpuscularization” of science.