Opinion – Darwin and God: Dirty Science Podcast investigates fraud and threats to public health

An undeniable Achilles heel of science journalism worldwide, and especially in Brazil, is the lack of more intense coverage of what we can generically designate as scientific misconduct. It is normal for us to deal with the everyday discoveries and intellectual controversies of science, but this sometimes prevents us from seeing the conflicts of interest, the ethical ambiguities and, from time to time, the outright frauds that happen and that have an impact not only on the reliability of the data, but also on public health. The Dirty Science podcast fills this gap tremendously well, and I am pleased to include it in our series of podcast reviews, which began with the dear torah with Fries.

Ciência Suja premiered in August 2021, with a topic that is very close to my heart (and that makes me angry in a particularly close way): the infamous “cancer pill”, phosphoethanolamine, (badly) developed by a researcher at USP in São Carlos, Gilberto Chierice, who died in 2019. During the Dilma government, my colleagues and I Sheet we cover the completely messed up process that led to the approval of the use of “phospho”, as it is called, for Brazilian patients, pushed by opportunistic deputies in the National Congress. Clinical tests would eventually prove that the alleged drug has no effect on cancer.

But the inappropriate use of “phospho” goes back much further, probably since the 1990s, and the folks at Dirty Science have done an excellent job of digging into the prehistory of the supposed panacea and the implications of setting aside the testing system. clinics established by the scientific method. Another exemplary episode is the one that opens the second season, about the experimental use of proxalutamide as a supposed magic drug against Covid-19 (spoiler: it’s unbelievable that those involved haven’t ended up in jail yet).

Leaving the area of ​​public health, understandably the most highlighted by the series, another excellent episode addresses one of the themes dear to the blog, the so-called Intelligent Design or “creationism 2.0” — in fact, its defenders also helped to spread misinformation about the Covid pandemic -19, especially in Brazilian evangelical circles.

In addition to the richness of information, several things make the Dirty Science very pleasant to listen to. To begin with, the couple of presenters Thaís Manarini and Theo Ruprecht are not afraid to use a little sarcasm or to properly name a spade when they are talking about clearly dirty people who distort scientific information and put the lives of others at risk. . Between us, in the current situation, it is a relief to hear voices that are not tied to a supposed ideal of impartiality that ends up favoring unscrupulous people.

It’s also refreshing to hear the variety of accents and ways of expressing themselves from the team, without the overly rehearsed and “clean” tone that you still see in other audiovisual productions. The people at Ciência Dirja simply sound like normal people, with their heads in place, investigating in depth absurdities that violate any notion of common sense.

Not by chance, they have just been chosen as the best podcast in the Einstein +Admirados Award by the Health, Science and Well-Being press. Here’s to more seasons!