Money before health. To make their sector of activity last, certain manufacturers are ready to finance rigged scientific studies, in order to confuse the spirit of politicians and to be able to continue to sell products that are dangerous for humans or the planet. It is this phenomenon that points out an edifying documentary broadcast on Arte Tuesday evening, The factory of ignorance. The film tells how some industrialists manipulate science to avoid restrictive regulations or legal proceedings.
Tomato juice and tobacco, same fight?
Among the sectors incriminated: tobacco. The documentary shows that scientists are publishing, since the 1950s, more and more studies proving the dangerousness of cigarettes. And in particular that it worsens the risk of lung cancer. The big tobacco manufacturers then retaliated by secretly launching numerous scientific studies on other probable causes of lung cancer.
Their goal: to cast doubt on the real dangerousness of cigarettes. In the studies they commission, even tomato juice becomes a risk factor for lung cancer. The tobacco companies thus succeed in delaying the legislation around cigarettes by several decades.
The factory of ignorance points to similar strategies in other sectors. Among them, neonicotinoids (insecticides that kill bees), but also bisphenol A (found in plastics) or even climate change. Industrialists sometimes even use the services of scientists, who speak falsehoods, to push aside scientific truth. Always to the detriment of public health.
Science, a common good against Covid-19
The documentary therefore questions our relationship to science and knowledge, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. But, according to the philosopher and scientific advisor Mathias Girel, present in the documentary, there is no question of questioning the scientific community, on the contrary. “The aim is to measure how precious science and knowledge are in our lives,” he explains.
“We can see it clearly during the Covid-19 pandemic. The way in which we will get out of this situation more or less quickly depends on scientific progress, which is a common good,” he adds. “This is one more reason to be interested in cases where there are dysfunctions, instrumentalisation or obscuration.”
The documentary The manufactures ignorance is already online on arte.tv and is broadcast Tuesday evening at 8:50 p.m. It is signed Franck Cuvelier and Pascal Vasselin.
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