Demanding more research can delay regulation despite abundant evidence
Evidence
A common way to forestall policy initiatives, even in the face of corroborative converging evidence from diverse methodologies, is to argue that the available information is insufficient and more research is needed. A decade after silicosis reached epidemic proportions among American mine workers, a scientist from a research center funded by the mining industry minimized the state of knowledge regarding silicosis in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association: âThe scarcity of factual information and lack of knowledge of already established facts are responsible for the major part of the medical expertâs shortcomings. Additional study is certainly neededâ After World War II, the silica industry claimed that silicosis was not only a minor problem but no longer existed. â Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1801
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Merchants of Doubt tactic â the âmore research neededâ delay is a classic industry playbook move echoed in tobacco and climate denial literature.
- SEED: Article angle: âthe perpetual demand for more researchâ as a systematic corporate strategy across industrial-hazard history (silica, tobacco, asbestos, climate).