Over the last 20 years, commercial influences on scientific research have becoming increasingly detrimental

It was not until the emergence of biotechnology that science and business operated in the same sphere. Especially in last twenty years, commercial influence has become more and more damaging on scientific research. What is more, apart from the previous

pharmaceuticals and tobacco sectors, three other sectors (oil and gas, defense and biotech) are suffering a damaging influence from commercial interest. In this essay, four negative influences of business on science are discussed.

The first issue is conflicts of interest, which are produced because scientists could

potentially do damage to science as they drives for profits from the research. According to Parkinson and Langley (2009), conflicts of interest can undermine the quality and reliability of research. To be specific, scientists do research in such a high speed in order to gain short-term interest that the result of the research is of a lower quality. This is mainly because that the research generates results to meet the needs of funders, not for the science itself.

Secondly, scientists fail to apply science ethically due to the pressure from their funders. NancyOlivieri, who isa haematologist of Toronto University, states her personal

experience that research findingsmay make any efforts to stop research findings from being publicized, when they might be harmful to the interests of them. For example, as she found that the drug had much toxicity, her company tried its best to prevent her from publishing her concerns. In this case, she may not publicize the outcomes of her

experiment to the public and people keep taking the toxic drugs afterwards. So, under the impact of business, it is quite easy for scientists to break the principles of ethic.

Furthermore, driving for profit of science may cause environment problems. Parkinson and Langley (2009) pointed out that governments are focused on ?delivering

competitiveness? and ignore the health of the public. This is especially in some fast-return and low-input scientific research such as the GM (genetically modified) food which

requires less fertilizers and pesticides.

Last but not the least, “another detrimentalexample is research on security issues which is overwhelmingly focused on military technology” (Parkinson and Langley, 2009, p.13). Too much money is spent on military technology without getting much fraction that the public funding is wasted (Parkinson and Langley, 2009). As a result of this,the

government may have less money to offer other welfare such as free medical care .What is more disappointing is that the government argues that the influence of commercial effect on military research can be ignored, which is mentioned by Parkinson and Langley (2009).

However, many scientists are however noticing the negative effects of business on science and some of them even are starting to publicize as commercial influences on scientific research is more and more detrimental. As is pointed out by Parkinson and Langley (2009), reform is needed to protect science from the damage of science. Some solutions are made on this, including opening publication of all funding arrangements between academics and business, setting up ethical standards for the cooperation of companies and universities to stop researchers from breaking the principles, using the same conclusion that science must be independent and free while scientists should tell the truth to work for the interest of the public(Ho& Saunders,2001).

References

Parkinson, S., & Langley, C. (2009). Stop selling out science to commerce. New Scientist, 204(2733),32-33.

Ho, M.-W., & Saunders, P. (2001, July 10).Big business = bad science? I-sis News, 9/10. Slaght, J.(2012). Is business bad for science? In J. Slaght& A. Pallant(Ed.), Reading & Writing (pp. 14-16). Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd.