From the Ambien and Dramamine in millions of bathroom medicine cabinets, to the sugar substitute that makes diet sodas sweet, to the first-ever birth control pill, some of America’s most common medicines and supplements can be traced back to the G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company. Now, more than a century after the company’s founding, the massive family fortune built from those scientific advances has emerged as a major benefactor of the right, mostly out of the public eye.
And the Heartland Institute has mailed 350,000 copies of a book falsely arguing that climate change science is “deeply flawed” to public school science teachers around the country, in an apparent attempt to influence how the subject is taught to students. A Heartland spokesperson said in an email that the group and scientists it has worked with “do not share the alarmist conclusion that human activity is causing a climate crisis.