An unconventional approach to valuing science

Scientific research is a valuable resource for society, but it cannot be impervious to criticism and scrutiny, including from journalists

Theo Ruprecht

“Science says so.” “According to science, we should do this.” But what is this science? Although the pandemic has brought us face to face with science in practice, it seems to me that most people still don’t know the inner workings of science, or how it is conducted, in general terms.

And then the term “science,” despite being more prevalent in certain discussions, loses its most valuable meaning, becoming synonymous with “truth.” Which, paradoxically, creates a field day for deniers and peddlers of magic solutions—as we have shown time and time again in episodes of the podcast Ciência Suja.

I always joke that when I pitch Ciência Suja to someone, I immediately throw in: “but we like science!” Okay, the podcast’s title is provocative, but the idea behind it has always been to show the negative impact of cases in which science has been misrepresented or misused, and how it has progressed (or can progress) from there.

Since its debut in 2021, we have investigated topics such as the anti-vaccine movement, the tobacco industry, eugenics, denialism in the COVID-19 pandemic, and the high cesarean section rate in Brazil.

It is precisely because “we like science” that myself and the entire Ciência Suja team—shout out to Carolina Marcelino, Chloé Pinheiro, Felipe Barbosa, Pedro Belo and the Serrapilheira Institute, which believes in us—understand that it should be portrayed as it actually is.

In other words, not as watertight truths that pop out of the minds of geniuses oblivious to the world, but as a social institution replete with practices that seek to build, usually step by step, evidence, theories, and so on.

Like any social institution, science is subject to the vices of its times. Believing in pure science, untethered to society, is to simply deny the abundant evidence to the contrary.

Science fosters knowledge, but it shouldn’t be an ivory tower impervious to criticism and scrutiny from others, including journalists.

Scientific racism, for example—a subject recently tackled on our podcast—is not a denialist movement, or something unrelated to science. It was created (and still persists) using scientific instruments, in a racist environment.

Much the same as the appalling Tuskegee Experiment, which kept Black men from being treated for syphilis to “see how it progressed naturally.” Likewise, the thousands of blood samples illegally collected from Indigenous peoples in Brazil—some to be sold to laboratories.

Along the same lines is the development of contraceptive pills on the back of abuses committed against women in Puerto Rico. Much like the HeLa cell line, which is still used to this day for various research purposes due to its “immortality,” and which was obtained without authorization from a poor Black woman who had only arrived at a health center to receive cancer treatment.

While studies using her cells took off in the second half of the twentieth century—garnering profit and fame for researchers and companies—Henrietta Lacks’s relatives continued to live in poverty.

Opioid epidemic

Shining a light on these cases is not intended to invalidate science or give ammunition to the deniers. On the contrary: with context and a journalistic approach that seeks ways to improve the problem in question, Ciência Suja aims precisely to foster the coveted scientific criticality in thought-provoking and well-scripted episodes.

For example: the current opioid epidemic in North America, which has already exceeded 700,000 deaths since its emergence in the 1990s, is fraught with nuance, but features a triggering event.

There was a claim that a powerful opioid-based painkiller, Oxycontin, was only addictive in a small minority of people, even if used continuously.

Representatives for Purdue, the pharmaceutical company behind this drug, claimed that Oxycontin was the painkiller “to start with and to stay with.” Backache or a headache that won’t go away? Take Oxycontin.

This claim was even endorsed by the American regulatory agency, based on a “study” that said only 0.03% of people who took Oxycontin developed an addiction. Very low indeed.

But… that study was actually just a letter to the editor published in the 1980s in The New England Journal of Medicine, and misrepresented by Purdue in order to maximize profits, which exceeded $35 billion from Oxycontin alone.

And what’s the difference between a letter to the editor and clinical research that actually helps determine substance dependence? There are many. And using this case, we were able to explain the main ones to our listeners.

Ultimately, the critical coverage of science that we incorporate into Ciência Suja effectively values the scientific method.

With the episode on the opioid epidemic, we hope that people will understand, minimally and critically, the drug development process, so that perhaps they will be less likely to fall for rhetoric such as the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe because they are “experimental” or have been developed too quickly.

Or that ivermectin helps treat dengue fever (yes, that’s on social media).

Science is not, in itself, egalitarian—in Brazil, a survey by the Multidisciplinary Research Group on Affirmative Action at Rio de Janeiro State University (GEMAA-UERJ), indicates that only 2.5% of the researchers in graduate programs in fields such as the Exact Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Biological Sciences are Black, Brown, or Indigenous women.

Science professionals can also propagate sexism and misogyny—a study published in January in the journal Nature indicates that half of the female researchers have experienced sexual harassment in academia.

And I’m not even going to get into the subject of predatory journals and the growing concern about article tampering.

But science, despite all this, is a valuable resource for society (perhaps one of the most valuable, in my opinion). And it is a “living” resource, capable of improving—as long as we are vigilant with it too, and understand that communication and journalism are part of this process.

Theo Ruprecht is a journalist who specializes in science and healthcare, and he is one of the creators of the Ciência Suja podcast. The podcast is supported by the Serrapilheira Institute.

Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of Science Arena or Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein.

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