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Comment by dariosalvi78 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why these companies even do these analyses . It has been proven over and over again that they are pointless, whatever the outcomes, the results are going to be ignored in the name of profits. I think that these companies should be obliged to subsidise independent, reviewable and verifiable research, for example from Universities or government run labs.

I get, secrecy, and I am OK if some details, for example about production and formulas, may be made available only under NDAs, but that's as much as that. The rest, especially health effects, should be under public scrutiny.

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As the article says, there are actually laws that require internal research that shows a product may be harmful to be made available to the EPA. That just doesn't do anything if the company either lies, or the EPA doesn't end up taking it seriously. As is often the case, the mechanism is there. The politics are not.

Bad mechanism design. Publication bias is bad even in academia, but within a corporate context there are overwhelming incentives to bury research that shows harms. Making safety requirements that work, for anything, requires independent auditors and researchers, and allowing the value of corporate secrecy to override laws ensuring safety mean that safety will never be a priority in a meaningful sense. A requirement about internal research is nearly useless, mostly enabling issuing some trifling fines way after the fact of something going horribly wrong

The media frequently reports when the results are ignored because that is salacious. But we don't know the denominator and I think it is likely higher than you think.

They are not ignored every time and many modern corporations are sensitive to reputational risk.

Keep asking the same question until you get the answer you want to hear. It's common behaviour in all organizations. That faint hope that a more convenient answer is found so we can proceed BAU.

What I don't understand is why all these people that knew better that works d there didn't do more. Very cult like following, where faith in the organization's mission allows for the mental gymnastics described in this article. A few tech and specifically AI companies come to mind and it is disconcerting.

In this case the answer is in the article: a rogue manager who knew what the results would be ordered the tests and then immediately retired.

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