SCIENCE WITHOUT SENSE: The Risky Business of Publi Health Research By Steven Milloy (Cato Institute, 1995)

Unscientific public health research costs U.S. consumers billions of dollars each year but does nothing to improve the well being of Americans. Science Without Sense is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek guide to getting ahead in the field without wasting time on real science.

"This is a recipe book for the public health superstar wanna be," says Milloy. "It has everything you need to know about how to create a risk that will electrify the public, how to reach the pantheon of public health and how to land those big fat research grants from the federal government."

As a public health expert, his first advice for the ambition driven researcher is to pick a "good" risk. "It should be unprovable and found almost everywhere. It should appear logical to the general public. It should be involuntary and hard to defend. But it should never involve personal sacrifice by the general public."

Milloy says he wrote the book to call attention to the weaknesses of public health research and bring about much needed improvements. "There are some in public health research who don't feel constrained by the scientific method or its principles. This practice, carried out in the name of public health, is actually a threat to the health and well being of all Americans," he says.