Re:After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its ...
by chii on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @06:13AM
(#7183088)
when the real possibility that your company's product is harmful, or detrimental to the environment, you could use your resources to continue researching it, at the cost of losing your profitability, or use your resources to vilify the researcher and stop the research from going, and continue to gain profit selling the product.
A human would feel guilt. A corporation would feel nothing, except for the sound of money.
Re:After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its ...
by wtbob on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @01:12PM
(#7185529)
> No, it's not OK to bring the fight to the gutter if an honest man is making an honest attempt to follow the science.
You're assuming that he's an honest man. He could be a dishonest man. He could be crazy. He could be persecuted, and still have a persecution complex.
You don't attack the messenger, you attack the message, and you do it with better science. No, it's not OK to bring the fight to the gutter if an honest man is making an honest attempt to follow the science.
An ethical response to a challenge from the scientific community on the efficacy or safety of your product is never a win-at-all-costs response. When a scientist is researching your product, unless you can show the research itself is a fraud, the only acceptable response is to accept or further the research.
An ideal response is not only to pour funding into furthering the research, it's to work alongside the other team collaboratively in doing so.
The ethics don't change depending on whether atrazine is actually net harmful. The only way to determine if atrazine is net harmful is through research exactly like this. We need this kind of research to happen, or net harmful chemicals will remain in use. Remember, Tyrone Haze starting his research on atrazine because Syngenta asked him to. From that point forward he was performing a public service.
Hope this helps you understand why it's NOT acceptable for companies to behave like this.