An Administration With No Concern for the Truth

By SAM URETSKY

John Keats wrote it: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all nn“Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

From which we can safely conclude that the Trump administration is ugly as sin. Simply, its leader, DJT, is a prolific liar who either doesn’t know the truth or doesn’t care. The New York Times reported, “Trump achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end until March 1.”

The problem extends beyond one person to an entire administration, which sets policies that not only disregard but reject the truth. That is, several of the federal agencies that are charged with protection of the public health and safety have set policies, which reject science, and science, proper science is simply the search for truth. There is also a form of pseudo-science in which people with academic credentials sell their souls for a study grant.

These so-called “studies” are focused on commercial products and are intended to show the greater superiority or safety of the sponsor’s product. While there are many examples in the scientific literature of this type of dishonesty, one of the best known is the Volkswagen emissions scandal. In this, according to Fortune magazine, “The exhaust control equipment in the VW diesels was programmed to shut off as soon as the cars rolled off the regulators’ test beds, at which point the tail pipes spewed illegal levels of two types of nitrogen oxides (referred to collectively as NOx) into the atmosphere, causing smog, respiratory disease, and premature death.”

It was a daringly audacious fraud, backed by the presumably reliable proof of a computer print-out. The results sold Volkswagens, with no concern for the harm they were causing to the public health, or the morality of their actions.

This type of commercial pseudo-science has been common in the pharmaceutical industry. These “studies” may not count toward getting a drug approved for marketing, but they may help the sales of the sponsor’s drug over a competitor.

They’re usually done by toying with the dose of a drug, or the dose interval. For example, two drugs have the same properties, but one, drug A, is given as a 100 mg tablet and the other, B, as a 50 mg tablet. During the study, both drugs are given at the same dose, 50 mg, and to nobody’s surprise, drug B turns out to be more effective. Studies of this type are actually conducted and published, because not everybody reads the published studies very carefully.

BMC Medical Ethics; London Vol. 15 (2014) published a report with the title, “Shortcomings of protocols of drug trials in relation to sponsorship as identified by Research Ethics Committees: analysis of comments raised during ethical review,” which concluded that while even government or foundation sponsored studies aren’t perfect, corporate sponsored studies have more problems. The International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine published a study, “Sponsorship bias in clinical research,” which reported, “Bias in favour of industry is apparent in every one of the themes examined with the result that research funded by industry undermines confidence in medical knowledge. “

And then, there is Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who, on Oct. 31, 2017, announced that he would no longer permit scientists whose work had been funded by the EPA, to serve on the EPA’s advisory boards. The Washington Post quoted Pruitt as saying, “It is very, very important to ensure independence, to ensure that we’re getting advice and counsel independent of the EPA,” On March 26, 2018, the New York Times headlined, “The E.P.A. Says It Wants Research Transparency. Scientists See an Attack on Science.” The paper reported “… the agency would no longer consider scientific research unless the underlying raw data can be made public for other scientists and industry groups to examine. As a result, regulators crafting future rules would quite likely find themselves restricted from using some of the most consequential environmental research of recent decades, such as studies linking air pollution to premature deaths or work that measures human exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.”

Some of the most valuable studies in environmental safety are long term reviews of the health outcomes of thousands of people who have agreed to let their medical records be reviewed on condition of confidentiality. Do people exposed to coal dust in the air, or lead in their drinking water have a higher rate of disease, or shorter lifespans? These studies may go on for decades, and not many people who participate if their medical records were generally available. These are the most critical studies to understanding environmental toxins, simply because they enlist large populations over a long study period, but if these studies are rejected, then EPA rules would have to be based on smaller shorter studies that might not last long enough to reveal environmental impact.

Science is the pursuit of truth. The Trump adminsitration is the flight from …

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in New York. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2018

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