[coldtea]

Sounds like

executives from the company 3M

convinced a scientist (presumanly to sign off)

that PFOS (chemicals used for certain non-stick properties in domestic and industrial products)

that seem to leak into human blood when using said products

are safe

[Arthur_ODC]

That's what I immediately understood the title to mean... Is this not what the title is saying? I'm confused as to why people are having trouble understanding it.

[spixy]

except you dont convince a scientists to sign off

you can force a scientists to sign off...

[coldtea]

Why use force when money can be pretty convincing on its own?

You can also help convince by giving false assurances or falsified statistics and results for their investigation.

[charlieok]

This got me curious enough to skim the article looking for the answer to whether 3M "convinced" her. It looks like the answer is:

    * They kept relevant information from her, including studies they'd done on the subject before
    * They sidelined her research efforts and made her feel unwelcome there
    * She grew to dread the subject and avoided staying involved with it
    * "when friends asked Hansen about PFAS, she would change the subject. Still, she repeatedly told [her husband] — and herself — that the chemicals were safe."

I guess you could read that as saying 3M "convinced" her if you really wanted to, but I'd have looked for a different way to describe it. It helps to remember that article authors don't usually get to write the headline.

[coldtea]

>She grew to dread the subject and avoided staying involved with it

How very scientific.

[erinaceousjones]

Context from the article I feel is necessary, here. She was pretty haunted by how it might be affecting her kids too. That's one of those "do I really want to go down this dark path" things, something which would've taken such a toll on her that she decided not to go there, now she had to focus on raising a family...

> But first, she decided to have one last blood sample tested for PFOS: her own. The results showed one of the lowest readings she’d seen in human blood. Immediately, she thought of the rats that had passed the chemical on to their pups.

> Hansen told me that, for the next 19 years, she avoided the subject of fluorochemicals with the same intensity with which she had once pursued it. She focused on raising her kids

She WAS meticulous in her research for YEARS, but ultimately held too much unquestioning trust in the company line that PFOS was safe. She got worn down and burned out... Which is pretty understandable.

At one point TFA quotes her asking her husband to walk her through the car park after work lest she be threatened by other 3M employees who now saw her as some kind of traitor, so at one time she was pretty worried about being victim of a Boeing-Type Incident.

If you want people to remain scientific, you gotta foster a culture in which it is safe to do so, and the impact of the findings matches its significance.

[nikau]

I'm sure a brown paper bag of cash can be convincing