Like I said I'm mostly ignorant of that domain, and curious what more informed people would say on that topic.
In this case, it seems like a claim that most table salt contains micro plastics should not be a very hard result to refute or reproduce. Usually scientists will avoid making claims that they aren’t really sure of and are easy to disprove.
The replication crisis is an example of science working the way it is supposed to. It’s scientists using the scientific method to call their colleagues to account. It’s just that it takes time.
There’s nothing wrong with the method itself. Make testable claims. Have other people test them. What the replication crisis tells us is we need to do this more, not that we need to do it less or not at all.
Net result a small bias, but not the kind of conspiracy worth talking about.
You can see how well it's working - money delayed but did not change the truth.
Science is very difficult to pay off. Individuals can spend another 10 years studying after high school just to get enough responsibility worth bribing... and even if they accepted the bribe, peer review would still reveal the sham research forever tainting their name.
So, yeah, people don't really accept bribes.
The worst you'll see is in pharma, where they're testing drugs - a researcher might select test subjects that will react well to a drug in order to make it look better (hiding side effects).