Abstract
The foxes are not only guarding the hen houses these days, they also want to run the feedlots, slaughterhouses, and the farms. This is what hegemonic monopoly capitalism looks like after decades of neoliberal rule. Ok—that’s rhetorical, but it is also accurately descriptive. In this issue, we are publishing a paper that was originally published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH), a journal that had a similar scope and orientation as New Solutions. That is, until its publisher, Taylor & Francis removed the editor, Dr. David Egilman, without notice or consultation with the journal’s editorial board. IJOEH regularly published peer-reviewed research papers detailing industry support for manufacturing doubt about science that provides evidence of human and ecological harm caused by our modes of production and consumption. In taking over the IJOEH, Taylor & Francis has chosen to reposition the journal away from its stated mission and scope, and has done so without consultation with the IJOEH editorial board, which has contested all of this. Reposition to what? Obviously, to something that would not provide scientific evidence of corporate harms against humanity.
The role of science with its processes such as peer review is not to win political battles. It is to discover and understand dynamics and processes, whether in the natural, social, or medical sciences. Researchers generate and test theories that form foundations for the approaches and designs used in scientific inquiry. We challenge ourselves against drawing foregone conclusions. Research of occupational and environmental exposures and conditions that can harm human health and generate unsustainable living conditions has proven to be quite a nuisance for interests that profit from the substances and conditions that can cause such harms. Unfortunately, research universities and institutions are being repositioned, much like the repositioning of the IJOEH, to sharply decrease research that could undermine these corporate agendas. Government funding is being choked of funds and/or being redirected toward research that will not as effectively, if at all, challenge corporate hegemony over technology, social organization, and the use of the natural resources. In the United States, as an example, we see Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, proposing measures to restrict research and the use of existing sound science for regulation and setting environmental health policies. He proposes to block the use of existing studies as the basis for regulations and make it more difficult to conduct future research.
New Solutions is committed to sound peer review and publication of research based upon the results of that review. David Egilman’s “The Production of Corporate Research to Manufacture Doubt about the Health Hazards of Products: An overview of the Exponent Bakelite® simulation study” is a paper that has already generated considerable controversy. We hope its publication in New Solutions generates dialogue and discussion about the influences of bias upon science and how best to require and protect researchers’ integrity.