An unsuspecting public can easily fall prey to bogus scientific studies seeking to discredit a company or ban a product from store shelves. Companies in the plastics, biotech crop, nuclear power, and paper businesses have all been in the crosshairs of groups gunning for Corporate America. Activists, policymakers, and journalists treat science as a rhetorical tactic in the war against their chosen opposition, whether it be corporations, the patriarchy, racism, or whatever. The product is used by vulnerable segments of the population, i.e., children, pregnant women. The product offers few perceived significant consumer benefits.
Activists can conjure up alleged alternatives.
The manufacturer has a history of caving in to activist pressure. Recent events at Novartis AG, the European chemical, pharmaceutical, and food giant that produces genetically engineered corn resistant to pests and soybeans resistant to herbicides, offer a near perfect example of how this works. Greenpeace, the global environmentalist organization, has orchestrated a global campaign claiming biotech crops are not safe and could harm the natural environment. Yet, virtually every scientific body and regulatory agency that has analyzed biotech crops concluded that they are safe. In fact, a recent consensus report from seven national scientific academies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London, found them as safe, if not safer, than conventional crops.