Megacorporation lobbyists and their ​‘science’

THE EDITOR, Madam:

So far, I’ve willingly consumed three COVID-19 vaccine injections and usually take the annual influenza vaccine because I believe the mainstream science behind them.

While the public verbal assaults against Dr Anthony Fauci by US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are inexcusable, I nevertheless feel the term ‘science’ gets used a bit too readily nowadays, including for political or self-serving purposes. Also, I’m cautious about blindly buying into (what I call) speculative science.

Due to increasingly common privatised research for corporate profit aims, sometimes even ‘science’ can be for sale.

Notably, questionable research results are sometimes publicly amplified if they favour the corporate product; and, conversely, accurate research results can be suppressed or ignored if they are unfavourable to business interests, even when involving human health.

Also, megacorporation lobbyists – especially those representing the huge and very powerful and influential pharmaceutical industry – tend to pull ‘corpocratically oriented’ Western governments (especially those of Canada and the US) by the nose.

Once in power, established political parties will kowtow to big business’ threats of transferring or eliminating jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, if corporate ‘requests’ aren’t accommodated.

In any event, such lobbyist manipulation does not belong in any government body, such as Health Canada or the US Food and Drug Administration, which were established to protect consumers’ safety and health, rather than big businesses’ insatiable profit goals.

FRANK STERLE JR

White Rock, BC

Canada