After reading Plague of Corruption, I do feel we have a problem with science. However, the problem is very different than what the author advocates.
The author claims that the federal government and big pharma are interested in protecting their financial interests. They will stop at nothing to prevent opposing view. (The author implies that there have been a number of scientists that have been assassinated by big companies to silence their research.) She claims that she has been silences because she has attempted to blow the whistle on the dangers of vaccine production and our blood supply.
The book covers many shady experiences that have happened to her that have happened to her. She was "silenced", lost her research data and cannot find any scientific research work. She identified problems with using other animals as vectors for vaccine production. She worries that vaccines may help lead to long-term lingering problems in our bodies. There are also concerns with our blood supply. She then claims that this offended the government and caused her to lose her livelihood. Now she is focussed on claiming damage from vaccines. She documents a few cases that she sees as indicative of malfeasance in the vaccine courts. Then at the end, she proposes alternatives. We should drink deuterium and smoke pot. (Hmmm. She talks about her religion and appeals to the right wing anti-vaxers, yet bookends it with a Kennedy intro and marijuana. I guess this is to get both the right and left?)
There are some legitimate claims in this book. However, there is also a ton of anecdote used to exaggerate rare occurrences. Suppose everything in the book is correct and we implement the desired solutions. There will be some huge class action lawsuits. Many lawyers will get extremely rich. People will stop getting vaccinated. A huge number of people will die from diseases that had been all but eliminated.
The big problem I see is the legal system that encourages all of this. There is this underlying expectation of "perfection". That just does not exist in the real world. The "6 sigma" standard would still leave 3400 defeats in a billion instances. With vaccines widespread, we would expect to have directly linked negative outcomes. There would also be an even greater number of coincidental outcomes. However, the positive result is much more difficult to identify. The vaccine court is a positive step. We should extend that to other areas of society. Right now there is always a quest to identify "deep pockets" to assign blame. What if we put more personal responsibility in the system? If something wrong happens that incurs a great cost have a simple way to allow for compensation.
There is almost always a way to retrospectively look back and say "if somebody would have done something, it wouldn't have happened." This is often enough to win a court case. However, it does little to help out society. We need to be able to just say "something bad happened". There may be something that we can do to limit from happening in the future. However, we must balance that against what good is done. Our current litigiousness makes it less likely that we will have needed improvements. In the case of COVID-19 vaccinations. A few rare blood clots resulted in the suspension of Johnson and Johnson vaccines, even though people were more likely to die on the drive to get vaccinated than from blood clot. (There were likely more people that died from Covid-19 due to delayed vaccinations than from the negative impact of the vaccine. However, the blood clots have anecdotes, while the survivors don't.) It perversely becomes in the public interest to suppress science that shines a negative light on vaccines so that more people can get vaccinated. People are just really bad with math and make bad decisions. If as a society, we shifted away from this legal expectation of perfection, we could actually spend more effort on identifying imperfections and helping to fix them. There are likely many improvements to vaccines that can be made. We need to open up society to allow it.
The financial incentives should also be addressed. There is a lot of money in the pharmaceutical industry. Government sponsored research can be used to seed profitable drug businesses. However, getting a drug on the market is an extremely expensive endeavor. A big company with deep pockets is needed to usher things through the process. There is an expectation of extreme safety. Drugs can be subject to great lawsuits if people have problems. (Opioid manufacturers were shut down not because of problems with the drugs, but because the drugs worked so well that people abused them.) If we want more vaccines and drugs we need to allow research to continue and problems to be addressed. However, we should also go back to look at our society as a whole. Why are we always looking for a drug to cure us? Why not focus more on the lifestyle changes that can help?
Bad Advice is written to both the consumer and producer of scientific information. He draws from his experience working in science and communicating to the public. He openly details many of the instances where he did not communicate as well as he wished he could have. (Going on the Oprah show as the "corporate" foil to an emotional woman is usually not a recipe for success.) He has done extensive research on vaccines which has caused him to wade in to the anti-vax minefield.