Industry funded "science" has tainted our world and turned science-based evidence into science-biased propaganda. Universities are laundering money through foundations to intentionally hide relationships, while scientists secretly nurture their relationships with corporate executives.

Negative outcomes go unpublished, the peer review process is so weak only studies that challenge industry interests are heavily scrutinized (usually by scientists hired by corporate public relations firms). Media is paid handsomely to ensure the public that "the science is settled," especially when corporate liability is a primary concern.

Raw data is held captive, conflicts of interest are not fully disclosed and studies are designed to specifically obtain a desired outcome.

It's certainly no secret that academic research is often funded by corporations. Academia often claims that such funding allows for innovation and does not influence the outcome of the studies. Industry, too, claims that such relationships do not influence the scientific process.

Syngenta spokesman Luke Gibbs even told The New York Times, "Syngenta does not pressure academics to draw conclusions and allows unfettered and independent submission of any papers generated from commissioned research."¹

James Cresswell, Ph.D., a pollination ecology researcher with the University of Exeter in England, had a different take on the matter, however. He spoke openly to the Times about his relationship with the pesticide giant, which included Syngenta-funded research into what's causing bee colonies to die.

Despite having reservations about receiving corporate funding, he did accept it, and soon after began to see the effects of this supposedly independent relationship. "The last thing I wanted to do was get in bed with Syngenta," Cresswell told the Times.

"I'm no fan of intensive agriculture [but] … absolutely they influenced what I ended up doing on the project."²

University Pressured Researchers to Accept Corporate Money

Cresswell's foray into the world of corporate-funded research started when his initial research caused him to question whether neonicotinoid pesticides were to blame for bee deaths.

The chemicals, which are produced by Bayer and Syngenta, have been implicated in the decline of bees, particularly in commercially bred species like honeybees and bumblebees (though they've been linked to population changes in wild bees as well). In 2012, Syngenta offered to fund further research by Cresswell on the link.

It was an offer Cresswell felt he couldn't refuse. "I was pressured enormously by my university to take that money," Cresswell told the Times. "It's like being a traveling salesman and having the best possible sales market and telling your boss, 'I'm not going to sell there.' You can't really do that."³

A University of Exeter spokesman said up to 15 percent of academic research in Britain is funded by industry and that such sponsors are independently analyzed.⁴

In Cresswell's case, he and Syngenta agreed on a study looking into eight potential causes of bee deaths, including a disease called varroosis, which is spread by varroa mites. Pesticide makers have argued that it's the mites, not pesticides, that are killing bees, but Cresswell's research didn't find such a link.

Manipulating Research to Fit Industry Agendas