Mobilizing Science: Movements, Participation, and the Remaking of Knowledge

Chapter 4: Government Institutions and Corporate Interests: Instigating Movement Challenge

❖ O ne central reason that the anti-dam movement and the environmental breast cancer movement have engaged in science is their need to contest corporate interests that control it. Corporations fund and often shape the environmental impact assessments on which dam policy is based (Fearnside 2006), and consulting companies funded by industry test chemical safety about which EBCM activists are concerned (Cone 2007). Government institutions work in conjunction with these corporations, often by using their research in policy. In addition, governmental research trajectories often fall in line or work in tandem with those of larger, more powerful corporate interests. This chapter describes the corporate/ government nexus involved in environmental causes of breast cancer causation and impacts of dams that has instigated these movements. Anti-dam activists have been concerned about corporate funding of environmental impact assessments and the few avenues available to displaced communities to counter the technical reports they often felt were biased or inaccurate. Movement concerns were not just about science, however. Scientific, corporate, and political institutions cocreated public perception and policy regarding dams. As a result, political dependence on expert opinion and corporate control of related technical information drove activists to gain access to science and reformulate it to address their concerns. In the EBCM, activists have been most concerned about two types of corporate/political/scientific nexuses. The first centers on the Government Institutions and Corporate Interests Instigating Movement Challenge 4 Government Institutions and Corporate Interests ▪ 75 complex interrelationship between pharmaceutical companies generating funding for breast cancer research and breast cancer organizations or government agencies that have corporate sponsors with vested interests in individualized disease paradigms. These powerful interests interact fluidly, providing educational material for the public and shaping massive research trajectories themselves. The second and less prominent concern deals primarily with the lack of regulation of cancer-causing chemicals. Chemical manufacturers conduct the analyses of these products upon which regulators depend, and this raises questions whether these policies are protective enough. The EBCM has devoted some time to changing local policies to reduce exposures to these chemicals they argue could be causing heightened rates of breast cancer. Buying into Biomedicine, Losing the Regulatory Battle Individualization of disease causation, prevention, and treatment developed in the twentieth century with the rise of powerful polluting industries (Tesh 1988). Miasma theories that acknowledged environmental contaminants and exposures fell away as large-scale polluters were released from responsibility for the health effects of their actions . Breast cancer research has long been focused on the biomedical model of disease causation that uses the individual as a locus of causation, assumes a specific etiology of the disease and the neutrality of medicine, and ignores social, political, or economic facets that drive the development of medical knowledge (Mishler 1981). The largest government institutions, the pharmaceutical sector, and the leading breast cancer foundations have provided support for this approach . In this way, research funding and the tools, paradigms, and methodologies employed by corporate researchers and consequently used by government agencies are “boundary objects” (Gieryn 1983) that create subtle corporate influence on government. More obvious corporate influence is manifest in lobbying by large-scale polluters who stand to sacrifice profits if they are made to better regulate their products (Cone 2007). By influencing political representatives, large private industries have reduced regulation of chemicals linked to breast cancer risk. 76 ▪ Chapter 4 The Biomedical Paradigm Scientific study of breast cancer has increased dramatically over the years. Breast cancer research dollars grew from $90 million in 1990 to $600 million in 1999 (Reiss and Martin 2000; House of Representatives 2003a). The vast majority of this research has been devoted to examining biological mechanisms and individual-level factors such as potential increase in risk due to giving birth for the first time later in life, alcohol consumption, diet, and exercise (Kant et al. 2000; Thompson 1992). Individual-risk-factor approaches continue to dominate for several reasons. First, they fit well with traditional biomedical concepts of disease causation, which are more credible and less politically charged than environmental paradigms. For example , the biomedical model includes a focus on genetics. In a period of growing genetic determinism, genetic makeup has been a major research focus, and knowledge claims based on genetic explanations of disease are considered especially credible (Conrad 1999). A growing amount of resources is being devoted to genetic research at the expense of other approaches. Massive profits stand to be made by those who can offer...