Robert David

A global exposé of how corporations distort science, erase truth, and turn human death into quarterly growth.

I. Introduction: When Truth Becomes a Liability

In an age when algorithms dictate belief and lobbyists author legislation, truth itself has become a controlled substance. The modern multinational corporation no longer merely markets deception—it manufactures consensus. Beneath the polished veneer of public relations campaigns and peer-reviewed façades lies a ruthless calculus: that human suffering is profitable, and scientific integrity is for sale.

The overpowering industrial empires of the twenty-first century—pharmaceutical conglomerates, petrochemical behemoths, agrochemical giants—do not simply deny evidence; they engineer alternate realities. These are not lapses in regulatory oversight, nor isolated ethical breaches; they are symptoms of a deliberately constructed system where science is not discovered—it is commissioned. Their “findings” happen to be profitable, convenient, quick and deadly.

What emerges is not mere disinformation, but a far more dangerous weapon: pseudoscience, repackaged as settled fact, wielded to delay regulation, discredit whistleblowers, and anesthetize public outrage. Millions pay the price—with poisoned water, failed medications, toxic air, and cancers whose origins have been redacted by design. You, reading this (USA), will die one decade sooner than your peers in Europe or Argentina or Asia.

This exposé does not ask whether science has been corrupted. It demonstrates that lies and corruption have become science’s business model.

Essentially, basically, wherever truth and science cut into profits, the seeds of doubt and conflict are sown via Fake Science.

II. The Corporate Machinery of Deception: How Pseudoscience Becomes Policy

At the heart of the pseudoscientific apparatus lies a labyrinthine network of corporate-funded think tanks, compromised academia, and captured regulators. These entities do not merely influence the scientific discourse—they dominate and redefine it to serve financial interests cloaked in the guise of intellectual expertise. Our deadly toxins are “smart.”

Consider the playbook employed by multinational conglomerates: First, the systematic funding of selective research agendas. By underwriting studies predisposed to favorable conclusions, corporations manufacture a skewed evidentiary base that feeds industry narratives. This selective patronage ensures that inconvenient data is either suppressed or delegitimized before reaching the public domain. Google “Astroturf does not cause cancer.” Ironically, the search results are Astroturfing, Greenwashing and Sanitizing Cancer. (Pun intended).

The strategic co-optation of scientific institutions. Universities and research centers increasingly rely on corporate grants, creating subtle incentives to align findings with sponsor priorities. This financial dependency breeds institutional self-censorship, eroding the once-sacrosanct ideal of independent scientific inquiry.

The weaponization of doubt. By amplifying fringe opinions and exploiting scientific uncertainty, corporate interests sow confusion and paralysis within policymaking circles and the general populace. This tactic, refined over decades by the tobacco industry and perfected by fossil fuel lobbyists, erects artificial controversies designed to delay regulation and preserve profit streams. Divide and conquer, split society into warring factions who continue to take their toxins without complaint.

Finally, the regulatory capture phenomenon solidifies corporate dominance. Agencies tasked with safeguarding public health and the environment are infiltrated by industry insiders or hamstrung by revolving-door personnel exchanges. The resultant regulatory inertia or active complicity transforms public protection into a façade.

The net effect is a feedback loop in which distorted science informs policy, policy legitimizes corporate agendas, and corporate agendas fund further distortion—a cyclical betrayal of democratic governance and human well-being.

As we delve deeper, the human mortality of this machinery becomes impossible to ignore. From poisoned rivers to compromised medications, the synthesis of profits and pseudoscience manifests in lives irreversibly altered and prematurely ended.

Merchants of Pseudoscience Mortality

Company / Entity	Approximate Net Worth (Billion USD)	Toxin / Form of Death	Associated Pseudoscience / Manufactured Doubt
ExxonMobil	~$350	Fossil fuel pollution, greenhouse gases, climate change	Climate change denial, manufactured scientific uncertainty
Johnson & Johnson	~$450	Asbestos in talc products, opioid epidemic	Suppression of harmful effects, misleading safety claims
Monsanto (now Bayer)	~$110 (Bayer)	Glyphosate herbicide, genetically modified organisms (GMOs)	Discrediting carcinogenicity studies, selective funding of favorable research
Philip Morris International	~$150	Tobacco-related diseases, lung cancer	Denial of tobacco harms, manipulation of nicotine addiction science
Pfizer	~$300	Opioid distribution, questionable drug safety	Ghostwritten articles, off-label drug promotion
Chevron	~$300	Oil spills, toxic pollution, environmental destruction	Climate denial, discrediting environmental impact studies
Dow Chemical	~$100	PFAS “forever chemicals,” dioxins, industrial pollution	Suppressing toxicity data, misleading regulatory bodies
General Electric	~$130	PCBs, PFAS, toxic waste	Greenwashing, obfuscation of toxic legacy
Bayer (post-Monsanto acquisition)	~$110	Glyphosate, endocrine disruptors	Scientific manipulation, legal challenges to carcinogenicity
BP (British Petroleum)	~$90	Oil spills, fossil fuel emissions	Climate change misinformation, environmental impact downplay
Vale	~$70	Mining disasters, toxic waste pollution	Minimizing disaster responsibility, disputing environmental claims
Formosa Plastics Group	~$30	Plastic pollution, toxic chemical discharge	Suppressing environmental harm studies, lobbying for lax regulation
Syngenta	~$45	Neonicotinoid pesticides, biodiversity loss	Disputing links to pollinator decline, selective research funding
DowDuPont (Corteva)	~$150	Pesticides, chemical pollution, endocrine disruptors	Manipulation of toxicology studies, delaying regulation
GlaxoSmithKline	~$100	Pharmaceutical side effects, opioid involvement	Concealing adverse data, aggressive drug marketing
3M	~$70	PFAS “forever chemicals” contamination	Delaying disclosure, regulatory lobbying
Walmart	~$600	Low wages linked to health impacts, toxic products in supply chain	Deflecting responsibility, minimizing labor health risks

III. Big Oil’s Climate Denial: Engineering the Fossil Fuel Fantasy

Few corporate machinations reveal the sinister synthesis of profits and poison more clearly than the fossil fuel industry’s campaign of climate denial. For decades, oil conglomerates have deployed an arsenal of pseudoscientific stratagems to obfuscate the existential threat posed by global warming. This deliberate obfuscation has delayed meaningful policy action, condemning millions to the escalating ravages of environmental catastrophe.

Internal documents—leaked and meticulously analyzed—reveal a cold calculus: companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron possessed irrefutable scientific data confirming climate change as early as the late 1970s. Instead of mobilizing to mitigate this threat, these entities invested millions to fund disinformation campaigns, manufacture doubt, and foster public confusion. This was not mere corporate denialism; it was an orchestrated war on truth itself.

The industry’s strategy was multifaceted. It included sponsoring front groups masquerading as grassroots organizations, infiltrating academic institutions to skew research agendas, and influencing media narratives to promulgate false equivalence between climate science and fringe denialism. By framing climate change as “controversial” or “uncertain,” they weaponized scientific nuance to paralyze regulatory frameworks.

Governmental agencies—often reliant on fossil fuel funding or staffed by industry alumni—compounded this betrayal through regulatory capture. The failure to impose robust emissions controls or transition policies reflects the profound entanglement between corporate power and political will.

The human consequences are catastrophic. From devastating wildfires and flooding to rising disease vectors and food insecurity, the cost of this pseudoscientific assault transcends economics; it is a slow-motion genocide, hidden behind profit margins and marketing gloss.

This chapter of corporate malfeasance epitomizes how pseudoscience, far from a benign intellectual error, becomes a weaponized tool for preserving wealth at humanity’s expense.

IV. Pharmaceutical Pseudoscience: The Illusion of Healing, The Reality of Harm

The pharmaceutical industry, long heralded as the vanguard of medical progress, harbors a shadowed underside where profit motives subvert science and imperil public health. The fabrication and manipulation of scientific data have become routine tools in the arsenal of corporate strategy—transforming life-saving innovation into a marketplace of engineered dependence and preventable suffering.

Central to this perversion is the selective suppression of unfavorable trial results. Studies that reveal adverse effects or diminished efficacy are buried or spun to obscure truths inconvenient to the bottom line. Concurrently, the proliferation of ghostwritten articles—scientific papers authored by corporate agents but published under the names of reputable academics—further muddies the waters of empirical validity.

Moreover, the industry’s marketing apparatus deploys off-label promotion and aggressive detailing, pushing medications beyond their approved uses without robust evidence of safety. The result is a prescription culture marked by overmedication and iatrogenic harm, exemplified in crises such as the opioid epidemic, which alone has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

As of 2023, over 760,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses since 1999, with prescription opioids accounting for nearly 218,000 deaths, according to the CDC (2023). Synthetic opioids like fentanyl now account for the majority of overdose deaths.

Regulatory bodies, ostensibly guardians of public welfare, are too often compromised by revolving-door dynamics, where former executives and lobbyists occupy influential positions. This compromises the independence required for rigorous oversight and fosters an environment where scientific standards are bent to accommodate commercial imperatives.

A BMJ investigative report found that 15 of the last 20 FDA commissioners moved on to high-level roles in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry, raising serious questions about conflicts of interest (Lenzer, 2016). At the EPA, a 2018 report showed that over 60% of political appointees had previous ties to the fossil fuel, chemical, or agricultural sectors (EIP, 2018).

The consequence is a grotesque paradox: the very institutions and practices designed to heal frequently become vectors of harm, obscured behind layers of scientific obfuscation and strategic misinformation. The public, deprived of transparent information, is left vulnerable to both physical and epistemic injury.

This chapter of the exposé illuminates the deadly interplay between corporate power and scientific distortion, where the pretense of medicine masks a deeper reality—one of profit prioritized over human life.

V. Agribusiness and Chemical Pollution: The Toxic Harvest of Corporate Control

The modern agribusiness complex exemplifies the catastrophic fusion of corporate profit motives with the systematic distortion of scientific truth. Under the veneer of feeding a burgeoning global population, multinational agrochemical conglomerates have engineered a planetary scale experiment in toxicity, propagating chemical agents that devastate ecosystems, poison communities, and undermine biodiversity.

Central to this destructive model is the widespread deployment of herbicides, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) marketed with the imprimatur of scientific endorsement. Yet a closer examination reveals a calculated manipulation of research data: studies linking these chemicals to cancer, neurological disorders, and reproductive harm are systematically suppressed or discredited, while industry-sponsored science is promulgated as incontrovertible fact.

Glyphosate, the flagship herbicide of Monsanto (now Bayer), offers a paradigmatic example. Despite compelling evidence associating it with carcinogenic risks, corporations have mounted relentless legal and public relations campaigns to manufacture doubt, obfuscate regulatory scrutiny, and preserve market dominance. This corporate strategy mirrors tactics honed in the tobacco wars and fossil fuel disinformation campaigns, underscoring a playbook of scientific sabotage.

According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), glyphosate is classified as a Group 2A carcinogen—“probably carcinogenic to humans.” A 2019 meta-analysis published in Mutation Research found that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides increases the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41% among exposed individuals (Zhang et al., 2019).

Equally pernicious is the promotion of monoculture farming reliant on synthetic inputs, which obliterates soil health, reduces genetic diversity, and renders food systems vulnerable to collapse. The environmental fallout cascades beyond the fields—contaminating water supplies, disrupting pollinator populations, and accelerating climate destabilization.

Regulatory agencies, often beholden to agrochemical interests through lobbying and revolving doors, have consistently failed to enforce meaningful protections. The resultant permissiveness normalizes toxic exposure as an unavoidable cost of progress, disproportionately harming marginalized communities and undermining global food sovereignty.

This chapter lays bare the industrial agribusiness empire’s role in weaponizing pseudoscience to conceal an ecological crisis of unprecedented scale, revealing a tragic calculus where profits supersede planetary health and human survival.

VI. Regulatory Capture: The Silent Coup Against Science and Public Welfare

Regulatory agencies, those ostensibly designed as bulwarks of public health and environmental stewardship, have been systematically subverted into instruments of corporate dominion. This phenomenon—known as regulatory capture—represents one of the most insidious threats to democratic governance and scientific integrity in the modern era.

Rather than functioning as independent arbiters, these agencies increasingly serve as extensions of the industries they regulate, hamstrung by revolving-door personnel exchanges and financial dependencies. Former corporate executives assume leadership positions within regulatory bodies, while regulators themselves often transition into lucrative private sector roles, cultivating a nexus of mutual interest that erodes accountability and fosters permissiveness.

This collusion manifests in lax enforcement, watered-down safety standards, and the systematic dismissal of inconvenient scientific findings. The agencies’ supposed vigilance is reduced to performative gestures—rituals designed to mollify public concern while allowing corporate malfeasance to proceed unabated.

Such institutional corruption corrodes the foundational trust between the public and science, creating fertile ground for pseudoscience to flourish. When regulatory frameworks are compromised, the boundary between legitimate inquiry and manufactured ignorance blurs, enabling corporations to weaponize scientific uncertainty to their advantage.

The resultant paralysis in policymaking perpetuates harm across every sector—from unchecked toxic emissions and hazardous pharmaceuticals to unregulated pesticides and greenhouse gas pollution. This silent coup undermines not only the health of populations and ecosystems but the very concept of science as a public good.

Recognizing and dismantling regulatory capture is imperative. Without restoring genuine independence and scientific rigor to these institutions, the alliance between profits and poison will continue its deadly march unchecked.

VII. The Myth of Progress: General Electric and the Corporate Branding of Toxicity

Few corporate slogans encapsulate the art of manufactured benevolence more succinctly than General Electric’s iconic mantra: “Bringing Good Things to Life.” This phrase, emblazoned across decades of advertising campaigns, evokes innovation, optimism, and the promise of progress. Yet beneath this carefully crafted veneer lies a far darker reality—one in which the corporation’s role in environmental devastation and public health crises remains meticulously concealed.

General Electric’s sprawling industrial empire has long been complicit in the manufacture and dispersal of some of the most persistent and pernicious toxins known to science. From polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that contaminate waterways and bioaccumulate through food chains, to the production of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—dubbed “forever chemicals”—GE’s chemical legacy is inseparable from a broader narrative of ecological destruction.

Despite mounting scientific evidence linking these substances to cancers, hormonal disruption, and immune system impairment, the company’s marketing machinery continues to project an image of clean technology and social responsibility. This greenwashed facade strategically obscures decades of toxic pollution and regulatory evasion.

Moreover, GE’s influence extends deeply into political and regulatory spheres, where lobbying efforts and financial patronage have effectively muted oversight and forestalled meaningful remediation. The dissonance between the company’s public messaging and its environmental footprint exemplifies a broader pattern of corporate duplicity, wherein branding supplants accountability and image supplants integrity.

In exposing this myth, this chapter unmasks the brutal calculus beneath the corporate gloss: the sacrifice of ecosystems and human health as the price for market dominance cloaked in reassuring slogans.

VIII. Big Nuclear’s Poisoned Promise: Thorium and the Illusion of Clean Energy

In the pantheon of corporate pseudoscience, few narratives are as pernicious—and as dangerously deceptive—as the nuclear industry’s promotion of thorium-based reactors as the “clean, green, and benign” solution to the energy crisis. This carefully engineered myth seeks to whitewash the deadly legacy of radioactive contamination, half-lives stretching into millennia, and the systemic neglect of human and ecological health.

Thorium, a radioactive element touted for its purported safety advantages over uranium, has been aggressively marketed by nuclear conglomerates and lobbyists as a revolutionary alternative. Yet beneath this veneer of scientific progress lies a toxic calculus ignored by corporate propagandists: thorium’s decay products remain lethally radioactive for tens of thousands of years, exposing generations to invisible, persistent poisoning.

Specifically, progeny isotopes such as Uranium-232 and Thorium-228 remain dangerously radioactive for up to 160,000 years, with U-232 decay chains emitting penetrating gamma radiation that complicates waste handling and disposal (Moore, 2015; IAEA, 2021).

The nuclear industry’s rhetoric minimizes or outright ignores the devastating health consequences of exposure—cancers, genetic mutations, and environmental contamination. Even “clean” thorium reactors generate radioactive waste streams that defy safe disposal, perpetuating a legacy of contamination that burdens countless communities and ecosystems. Just think of yours and your family member’s DNA, destroyed at the chemical, biological and subatomic level.

Further compounding this crisis is the industry’s mastery of scientific obfuscation and regulatory capture, which stifles independent research and manipulates public perception. Scientific uncertainty is weaponized to stall opposition, while claims of a thorium “renaissance” serve as a smokescreen to perpetuate the nuclear status quo under the guise of innovation.

This poisoned promise is not merely a failure of energy policy; it is a continuation of the corporate war on truth, where the same mechanisms that distort climate science, pharmaceutical data, and agrochemical safety converge in the nuclear sector’s hazardous dance with death.

Exposing thorium’s false allure is essential—not only to confront the environmental and health catastrophes of the past but to challenge the corporate interests that perpetuate pseudoscientific narratives at humanity’s expense.

The Battle for Truth Is the Battle for Life

This exposé has traced a brutal and unyielding calculus: profits and poison are entwined through a sophisticated architecture of pseudoscience, designed not merely to deceive but to consolidate power at the cost of millions of lives. Across industries—from Big Oil’s climate denial to pharmaceutical manipulation, agribusiness’s toxic harvest, regulatory capture’s silent coup, and the nuclear sector’s radioactive smokescreens—the corporate war on truth wages unabated.

Yet history reminds us that truth is never a gift granted by those in power; it is a battlefield won by voices brave enough to resist. Nearly six decades ago, students and activists gathered at Berkeley’s Sproul Hall, demanding the right to speak freely against a system that sought to silence dissent. Their courage reshaped public discourse, ignited democratic fervor, and challenged entrenched authority.

Today, the stakes are far higher. The weaponization of pseudoscience to protect profits over people demands a renewed uprising—not of fists or barricades alone, but of uncompromising intellectual resistance and collective moral clarity. The lies manufactured in corporate laboratories and legal offices are not ephemeral; they are existential threats, veiled in scientific jargon but deadly in their consequences.

We stand at a crossroads. To accept the distortion of science as inevitable is to resign ourselves to a slow genocide, environmental collapse, and a future where human life is expendable. To resist is to reclaim truth as a common good, to demand transparency, accountability, and justice from institutions that have long abandoned their duty.

This is not a mere academic dispute. It is a struggle for survival, a call to arms for all who value knowledge, integrity, and life itself. The battle for truth is the battle for life. It is a fight that must be waged—and won—now.

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Profits and Poison: The Pseudoscience Killing Millions

Robert David