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Corporations in unhealthy commodity industries (UCI) have growing influence on the health of national populations through practices that lead to increased consumption of unhealthy products. The use of government-led public health surveillance is best practice to better understand any emerging public health threat. However, there is minimal systematic evidence, generated and monitored by national governments, regarding the scope of UCI corporate practices and their impacts. This study aims to synthesise current frameworks that exist to identify and monitor UCI influence on health to highlight the range of practices deployed by corporations and inform future surveillance efforts in key unhealthy commodity industries.
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Mercenary Science: A Field Guide to Recognizing Scientific Disinformation
The strategy of creating confusion and doubt about product safety, often called the "tobacco playbook" after the industry that used it so successfully, has become standard operating procedure among many corporations across a wide range of industries. The "tobacco playbook" has been widely applied, generally with great success--if "success" is measured by delaying action to protect the public. One of the playbook's chief strategies, paying public relations professionals and scientific experts to question evidence, is now marketed by "product defense" specialists and used widely by firms eager to avoid addressing the harms caused by their products. This product defense ploy is public relations disguised as science. The corporations market their studies as "sound science," but in reality, they merely sound "like" science. There is a need for a system that develops the relevant scientific evidence before people are harmed and lawsuits are launched. In the meantime, greater public awareness of product defense and its confusion and doubt tactics will make it more difficult for polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products to continue to harm the public's health. This article provides a field guide for teachers and students of science to the tricks used to manufacture and sell scientific disinformation.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2147334
- PAR ID:
- 10397715
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American educator
- Volume:
- 45
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2770-4432
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 20-25
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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