Manufactured science---The attorneys' handmaiden: The influence of lawyers in toxic substance disease researc

Since the early twentieth century, manufacturers and distributors of toxic products have sought to discredit research linking their products with disease. At the same time they conducted research designed to demonstrate minimal risks associated with their products. Much of this activity came about by or through corporate retained attorneys, whose endeavors are the subject of this dissertation. Such attorney involvement has allowed for shielding undesired results through the court-sanctioned attorney right to secrecy. In many cases, this legal participation and even management of medical research has changed the topography of the medical literature, distorting it toward the null hypothesis for disease potential of the subject materials. This is because attorneys, whether they are defense or plaintiff, only sought credible evidence for their position at trial or in regulatory practice, not the advancement of science. Furthermore, the distortion is primarily one-sided, toward the defense of toxic substances. This results from the virtually unlimited financial backing defense lawyers have from large corporations, while plaintiff counsel are almost uniformly reluctant to spend their own money.;To date, only limited historical accounts about this attorney effort have been published, largely because of the veil of secrecy created by attorney privileges. This dissertation seeks to look behind the veil to examine the full range of legal activities in case studies of five substances---silica, tobacco, asbestos, chromium, and benzene. These activities include lawyers identifying, hiring, and controlling experts, preparing contracts for research that limited public disclosure, managing research, editing final research papers, harassing opposing experts, and manipulating regulations and workers' compensation laws. This lifting of the veil is possible primarily through disclosures found in bankruptcies and legal proceedings, assets not normally considered by historians of science.;The activities of lawyers in manufacturing science had varying degrees of success as they evolved over the course of a century. During the early decades of the twentieth century, attorneys were largely successful in limiting victims' recovery for silicosis and keeping it out of the public eye. Similarly, at first, cigarette and asbestos product manufacturers were successful in limiting litigation's effect on the bottom line. However, a growing number of public health advocates and plaintiff attorneys brought these controversies increasingly into the public legal arena, resulting in massive settlements by the tobacco companies and bankruptcies of many asbestos product manufacturers. The settlements and bankruptcies also provided a treasure trove of documents, many of which detailed extensive involvement of lawyers in the manipulation of medical research.;To date, chromium and benzene manufacturers, as well as certain asbestos product manufacturers, have been more successful in limiting damage through lawsuits and regulations. In part this is because of the newest evolution in research tactics. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, "Litigation Support Firms" began undertaking an increasing amount of the attorney-managed research. These companies worked hand in hand with attorneys, as they transformed the peer reviewed medical literature on toxic substances by publishing carefully structured industry friendly research (and reviews of past research) in peer-reviewed, but often industry controlled, journals. Even when researchers have been free to publish their findings, the approval was often subject to final approval of a report exclusively provided to the client. Thus, the public articles rarely disclosed any hazard. On occasion the researchers published the same data in slightly altered forms in two to four publications, thus slanting the entire balance of the peer review literature.;Attorney involvement in medical research is a fundamental problem in the production of medical knowledge. The ability to hide and manipulate science has delayed recognition of hazards such as silica, tobacco, asbestos, chromium, and benzene by decades. Today, it continues to skew the understanding of toxic substance diseases.