They also show how to fill the resulting void with misinformation. They then launch into more recent anecdotes of obscurantism and obstructionism. Outlawing research is one option, the authors explain, pointing to efforts to place a wide-ranging ban on cloning experiments. Alternatively, science can be regulated into the ground, as when the Environmental Protection Agency moved to control pest-resistant plants as if they were pesticides. Government purse strings can be useful in tying up undesired research, such as fetal tissue studies during the Reagan-Bush years.
Legal harassment works well, too.
The authors describe how lawyers representing the alleged victims of silicone breast implants intimidated the Mayo Clinic with onerous demands for medical records. Even after a research project has been completed, there are various ways to hide or distort the resulting information, the authors point out reassuringly. Careful editing, for instance, allowed a United Nations report to overstate the threat of global warming. California s environmental agency went this one better, systematically destroying research documents that did not support the agency s final decisions. The first consists of governmental or other seemingly authoritative pronouncements that happen to be unsupported by evidence, such as a U.S. Senate resolution that women in their 40s should have mammograms.