Industry scientists discredited epidemiology as too crude to prove harm

Evidence

The tobacco industry disparaged research that demonstrated the harmful effects of tobacco. Robert Proctor (2011) compiled a two-page list of the massive ridicule. Here is but a small sample: “half truths in the hands of fanatics … Orwellian Official Science … Scientific malpractice … statistical jiggery pokery … claptrap … colossal blunder.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1685 (#expands, via linked claim)

The problem was that the industry continued to call for more research, and for delayed action, irrespective of how much evidence came in. As late as March 1988, after the BAS findings showed the presence of the ozone hole, after Stolarski’s review of the NASA satellite data confirmed the BAS data, and after the 1986 and 1987 Antarctic expeditions provided direct detections of by-products of CFC interactions with ozone, the CEO of DuPont wrote to the US Senate to declare that there was no need for drastic reductions. By this point, it was hard to imagine what further evidence you could ask for. And yet the industry kept asking for more—for certainty. — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 94 (#expands, via linked claim)

Disputes about empirical evidence of harmful effects take a variety of forms. They include engaging in straightforward denial, distortion, or minimization of adverse health effects; creating questionable exposure thresholds below which the exposure is claimed to be harmless; fabricating controversies to confuse the general public about the overall evidence; denying access to industry data showing harm; and exaggerating the adverse consequences of regulating or eliminating the product. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1620 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Epidemiological interviews can exhaustively catalog confounders while missing the suspected exposure. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 169; Industry-funded scientists denied lead risks that mainly harmed poor children; Tobacco firms ridiculed science showing tobacco harms to discredit it — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1685 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Tobacco firms ridiculed science showing tobacco harms to discredit it #expands (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1685
• Industry disinformation demanded impossible certainty regardless of accumulated evidence #expands (0.95) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 94
• Industries dispute harm by fabricating controversy and manipulating evidence thresholds #expands (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1620