Industries used proxy institutes to secretly fund biased research

Evidence

The head of the Mellon Institute for Industrial Research, a corporate-funded research group, suggested to industry leaders that they locate research on silicosis at the institute, using it as a proxy. That would enable individual corporations to sponsor research surreptitiously, thereby avoiding accusations of conflict of interest: … If this work were to be centralized in Mellon Institute, it … could be carried out in a most confidential manner as to who was supporting the research and no one would know what industries or individuals were contributing to the fund. This would enable the organization to get soundly established, so that if later on it was desired to come out in the open this could be arranged. (Weidlein, 1935) The use of respiratory masks as the first line of defense against silicosis has long been a contentious issue in the dusty trades. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1803 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Institute research projects often served tactical legitimacy-building aims rather than pure science — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 688; Ongoing self-censorship risked systematically distorting the Institute’s research priorities — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1722; Google secretly staged academic conferences to influence antitrust regulators — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 402 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Industry secretly sponsored silicosis research through a proxy institute to launder credibility #exemplifies (0.97)
• Corporations hid industry sponsorship behind proxy research institutes to avoid conflict-of-interest charges #expands (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1803