Science for Sale
How the US Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support Government Policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize Our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
When Speaker Newt Gingrich greeted Dr. David Lewis in his office overlooking the National Mall, he looked at Dr. Lewis and said: “You know you’re going to be fired for this, don’t you?” “I know,” Dr. Lewis replied, “I just hope to stay out of prison.” Gingrich had just read Dr. Lewis’s commentary in Nature, titled “EPA Science: Casualty of Election Politics.” Three years later, and thirty years after Dr. Lewis began working at EPA, he was back in Washington to receive a Science Achievement Award from Administrator Carol Browner for his second article in Nature. By then, EPA had transferred Dr. Lewis to the University of Georgia to await termination—the Agency’s only scientist to ever be lead author on papers published in Nature and Lancet.
The government hires scientists to support its policies; industry hires them to support its business; and universities hire them to bring in grants that are handed out to support government policies and industry practices. Organizations dealing with scientific integrity are designed only to weed out those who commit fraud behind the backs of the institutions where they work. The greatest threat of all is the purposeful corruption of the scientific enterprise by the institutions themselves. The science they create is often only an illusion, designed to deceive; and the scientists they destroy to protect that illusion are often our best. This book is about both, beginning with Dr. Lewis’s experience, and ending with the story of Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
Customer Reviews
Incredible Information
I can’t begin to review this book without getting caught in the weeds. It is simply an honest expose’ of the corruption in science today. Money drives and determined results and those who protest that system are threatened, humiliated, marginalized and eventually buried.
The text is full of credible information about how the government’s political agenda is forced upon the scientific world, most of whom crumble under the weight and produce piles (good word Jack) of false science, to get paid and publicly praised on the White House lawn by both parties.
The well recognized and once respected scientist discusses a number of battlegrounds where public health is sacrificed on the altar of big Pharm., universities and government. Money talks. Money directs. Money destroys honesty. We all suffer for it.
He discusses the following areas of his greatest concern: sterilization of dental and colonoscopy instruments, biosolids widely used as fertilizer (Big Pharm profit-driven) despite credible studies proving extremely hazardous metals and deadly bacteria are present, vaccines that lead to autism in children, and my favorite, a reasonable but too brief discussion on climate change. He even touches the third rail of religion and science, a most worthy subject. Brilliantly written.
In short, if the big three mentioned above get involved into health related science, it will be corrupted to fit the desired political agenda. He says the only science that remains untainted is that which doesn’t matter to the government. (I did not detect the author’s personal politics at all in this work).
Okay, I got into the weeds, but not like the author’s work. He is often pedantic, if not tedious, in his attempt to validate and notate his controversial conclusions. I read most of the book, but admittedly skipped some pages that did not ring my bell. (Okay, I didn’t understand the science at times! Thus the Four Stars, not Five.)
He describes an ugly world that we are not allowed to know about. I completely believe him and I DO recommend this book to serious seekers of truth, not the BS the media, universities, Big Pharm and government shovels our way. (Wait till you read what Anderson Cooper on CNN did to muddy the waters, possibly causing tragedy in millions of lives.)
As my dad said, “Eat the meat and spit out the bones”.
JG
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