Much has been written about how politics and ideology influence research funding, suppress research in certain areas, and lead to the cherry-picking and misrepresentation of evidence in support of a narrative or agenda. Science journalist John Tierney explored "The Real War on Science" in an excellent essay in City Journal in 2016. Reflecting on this phenomenon in 2011, Patrick J. Michaels stated:

The process is synergistic and self-fulfilling. Periodicals like Science are what academia uses to define the current truth. But the monolithic leftward inclination of the reviewing   community clearly permits one interpretation (even if not supported by the results) and not another. This type of blatant politicized science is becoming the norm in the environmental arena, and probably has infiltrated most every other discipline, too.

It certainly has infiltrated research into the emotionally charged opioid overdose problem afflicting the US and many other western nations. Policy decisions have been rooted in a narrative seemingly immune to the facts: that the problem is largely the result of greedy pharmaceutical companies manipulating careless and poorly-trained doctors into "hooking" patients on highly addictive opioids and condemning them to a nightmarish life of drug addiction.