The Exploitation of Science in Pursuit of Profit

The seeds of the opioid epidemic were sewn with a single, heavily marketed lie in 1996: “The rate of addiction is much less than one percent.” This was the line that Purdue Pharmaceuticals trained its sales representatives to say when marketing Oxycontin to consumers and physicians. It was effective because of its ability to assuage people’s principal concern regarding the potent painkiller—the possibility of addiction. Doctors began liberally prescribing this miracle drug, and patients with chronic pain were confident that they finally had an effective, long-term solution. However, it quickly came to light that not only is the addiction rate of Oxycontin much higher than one percent, but also that Purdue Pharmaceuticals was aware of the ongoing drug abuse. Despite this knowledge, the company continued to market the drug as non-addictive. While Purdue Pharmaceuticals was fined over $630 million in a lawsuit for “misbranding,” the company still reaped significant profit from launching the drug. Ultimately, Oxycontin counts as a success for Purdue Pharmaceutical. This scenario points to a serious problem in today’s society: the misuse of science and research in marketing to generate profit in industry.

In industry, Research & Development (R&D) exists to fulfill two roles: to develop marketable technology and to assess the risk associated with a given product, system, or process. Both of these roles serve the overarching purpose of business, which is to maximize profits. With proper oversight, industry research can lead to rapid innovation, improved quality of life, and economic growth. However, lacking sufficient management, heavy industry involvement in R&D can encourage cutting corners in research and manipulation of science to paint a picture that is not representative of reality. These tactics can directly harm the consumer, threaten the integrity of science as a trusted institution, and compromise the efficacy of science policy.

This is not to say that industry should be altogether excluded from the research enterprise—industry research is crucial to both innovation and economic growth. The market forces that drive industry research often push science to meet pressing needs in society. It is also economically infeasible for the federal government to fund 100% of research conducted in the United States—total national R&D expenditures hover around $500 billion per year. However, the degree and type of involvement of industry in R&D needs to be rethought. Currently, there are three classifications of R&D: (1) basic research, (2) applied research, and (3) development. Industry is most involved in applied research and development but tends to avoid basic research. Basic research encompasses research conducted to generate scientific knowledge or understanding and further develop theories in underexplored areas. Applied research takes a more specific target than does basic research; it tackles explicit challenges, usually ones that have social or economic implications. Development takes applied research a step further and seeks to deliver a product, typically with the aim of generating profit. It is the lowest risk form of research because it operates in the realm of certainty; the scientific principles used in the development of the final product are already well understood. The private sector funds approximately 82% of development, as well as about 65% of applied research, while only about 50% of basic research. This disparity exists because development and applied research are lower risk investments with a more predictable payout than basic research, thus garnering greater attention from industry. 

However, there are problems associated with increasing the proportion of privately funded research (especially relative to declining federal funding), for two key reasons. Firstly, industry funding cannot replace government funding. Market forces drive industry to invest predominantly in applied research and development, not basic research. Basic research is important because it lays the foundation for innovation that is still ten to fifteen years out; neglecting this investment could harm US innovation in the long-term, even if it does not seem immediately practical. Secondly, government funding is crucial to maintaining the “public interest” aspect of science as an institution. This tenant of science demands a certain commitment to objectivity and independence—two qualities that are compromised when funding hinges on private interests. Nonetheless, a growing proportion of research that typically would be internally conducted by federal agencies is being outsourced to private organizations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, is outsourcing an increasingly large proportion of their research-based endeavors—including work like characterizing the environmental scene after an incident, performing ongoing surveillance or monitoring of the environment—to commercial entities that have a direct conflict of interest. Outsourcing enables industry to become engrained in the day-to-day work of agencies that should be regulating the commercial sector, presenting a conflict of interest while also applying a for-profit business model to research that should be done purely in the public’s interest. As such, increasing private funding and decreasing federal funding has the potential to harm future innovation, while also atrophying the altruistic component of R&D that legitimizes it in the public eye.

The commercialization of science also elicits some deeper concerns regarding industry marketing and political interference. As the needs of industry become paramount, scientific results become increasingly contingent on who is funding the research. This power dynamic has emboldened industry to stray from conventional practices in science, opening the door to manipulating data, misconstruing information, and abusive marketing. Forms of manipulation include suppressing negative research (internal or external), intimidating scientists, biasing study designs towards predetermined results, and ghostwriting articles, which is the practice of hiring professional writers to craft scientific reports on behalf of the study’s sponsor—oftentimes a pharmaceutical company—without public acknowledgement. This manipulation takes an institution that the public trusts—science—and uses it to mislead consumers and professionals alike, threatening the legitimacy of science and scientists as trusted experts and transforming both into marketing gimmicks. This problem is especially pervasive in industries with concentrated money and power that  tend to gain more from the hefty profits of lying than they would lose in the event of a lawsuit.

The pharmaceutical industry is a prime example. As a result of its wide profit margins and frequent political interference, it is amongst the most profitable and powerful research-driven industries in the United States. For the top ten pharmaceutical companies, however, average investment in R&D is less than the corresponding investment in advertising to consumers and medical professionals. The industry’s focus on advertising as opposed to developing effective products is emblematic of its consistent misuse of scientific information in branding. 

This again recalls how Purdue Pharmaceuticals branded Oxycontin as rapidly effective and non-addictive—a miracle for those struggling with chronic pain. The company manipulated statistics, suppressed research that suggested Oxycontin is more addictive than was indicated, and promoted a poorly researched, single paragraph subsection of an editorial as factual in its advertisements, stating that “the rate of addiction amongst pain patients is much less than 1%” and that opioids “do not have serious medical side effects.” As a result, Oxycontin was prescribed liberally and without proper oversight, resulting in millions of Americans developing long-term dependency on the potent drug. When science is abused to sell a product, the social costs can be steep. In this case, purposefully misconstruing research culminated in a public health epidemic and thousands of lives ruined.

This same misinformation, in combination with ample amounts of money,  is in turn used to exercise influence in politics. Over the past three decades, Pharma has spent over $4 billion on lobbying and has contributed millions more to the campaigns of those running for election in the House and Senate. This money enables Pharma to exert undue influence on legislation and regulations affecting  the industry­­­­, particularly within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Considering the FDA’s role to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices, impartiality is important—nonetheless, it is far from  immune to external influences. One analysis conducted by Science investigating the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in the FDA found that of 107 physicians who sat on several selected FDA committees, 40—over nearly a 4-year period—received more than $10,000 in post hoc earnings or research support from either competing firms or the makers of drugs that the panels voted to approve. 26 of those 40 gained more than $100,000, and six received more than $1 million. Financially incentivizing physicians on FDA committees to vote drugs through to market is blatant political interference in a process designed to safeguard the public’s health. This tampering indicates how industry is commercializing regulation as well as science, allowing for the propagation of a system that prioritizes industry needs over the wellbeing of the public. As such, interference risks degrading not only the integrity of science, but also that of the federal governing body.

This problem is not unique to Pharma. Abusive marketing, aggressive lobbying, and purposefully misconstruing information are pervasive wherever rich, powerful actors have an invested interest in science policy outcomes (or the lack thereof). These same tactics have been employed in the oil industry to suppress research demonstrating that climate change is anthropogenic, or caused by human actions. Another example is the coal industry cheating health and safety standards, resulting in the black lung epidemic (which the industry also collectively tried to suppress). Yet another is the NFL covering up the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players by intimidating scientists researching the link between brain injury and playing football. Corporations continually abuse science to exploit consumers and turn a higher profit, while also using their capital to influence legislation that disproportionately favors industry rather than the public. 

Preventing industry abuse of scientific information, however, is no easy task. The ideal way to address the root of the problem would be to reduce or better control the susceptibility of the legislative process to industry lobbying. While doing so would allow more robust, impartial regulations to be developed, a more realistic  and logical first step would be to improve the ability of federal agencies to cope with conflicts of interest. Currently, most government agencies do not have mechanisms in place to identify or address conflicts of interest, making them vulnerable to industry influence. Mandating that agencies with the power to regulate develop a system to measure and manage existing conflicts of interest could be a step towards cleaving industry interests from federal regulation. While these are small steps that certainly will not eliminate the problem entirely, action to reduce corporate influence in science and regulation, even if incremental, is crucial to ensuring that the primary role of these institutions is to protect public interests.