Do you mean ideally? Because obviously modern science and academia is mostly steered by external interests and public opinion. I know many scientists who entertain research projects from companies only because they're fully paid for, meanwhile they struggle with funding and publishing projects they want to do because there's so few opportunities available for funding. To then conclude that companies or government entities may want to do certain research according to what best serves them is not too hard of a stretch to make. It's happened numerous times before, especially within climate science, medicine, and tobacco.

I'm not saying one should distrust science, especially papers published by reputable sources, done by reputable labs, or otherwise have good methods and sensible conclusions. But that's the problem, right? One has to contend with what's "sensible". If someone published a paper tomorrow actually showing a strong causal effect between consuming fluoridated water and the calcification of the pineal gland, not only would it be seen by no one except weird fringe communities, but the scientists involved would be ridiculed. The area has been politicized, and in that case it's hard to see how it couldn't be, it's a ridiculous idea, but it does make a clear example of this politicization if you understand the context. Something similar happened with the origins of SARS-CoV-2, where the assumption is (from my personal experience) that only certain political machinations could convince someone to come to conclusions that SARS-CoV-2 origin could be a lab leak. Now maybe this isn't the case anymore. I haven't thought about this in like... a year, nor looked at public discourse for about that long either. But regardless I feel like public opinion is still largely the same, and judging by the article, the politicization of the topic is still in full swing. Thus, we're not only dealing with reality, but a manufactured reality as well.