RE: Reasonable Worst Case

[daniel ziskin <ziskin@jote.org>]

James Cooper writes:
>Either the results are repeatable, or they are not.

Yes. This is an advantage that industry groups have over private citizens. It is extremely difficult to challenge industry research, even though it is occasionally found to be fraudulent.

>The people that have the most impact at these meetings are those >that gather as many facts as they can, and present them in an >objective, straight-forward manner.

And this is precisely what folks complained about a day or two ago...the marginalization of narrative testimony.

Industry-based research has lost its credibility in the eyes of the public. When a trade group presents its results showing that their products are harmless, the public thinks..."This is from the folks that brought us Love Canal, thalidimide, and who told us that nicotine is non-addictive." Then the public is angered that commercially sponsored research is still taken more seriously than their heartfelt anecdotal concerns.

Being a scientist myself, I know that scientific results can be LEGITIMATELY manipulated to support several (sometimes contradictory) conclusions. It's not as simple as just "doing your homework" as the chemical industry representative suggests. Granted that there are also boatloads of hysterical myths that get presented in contrast to scientific reasoning. I see this as a symptom rather than the disease.

The disease is that science is not objective. It is being used as a crowbar to loosen regulation of industry. And this makes people mad, because their health is being jeopardized.