If a company wanted to, they could certainly use the online social media polarisation to poison any discussion.
Any discussion of the validity of Ivermectin as a COVID treatment is now "political", in the sense that Team Red thinks that its a gift from god, and Team Blue thinks any consideration of it is anti-science stupidity.
And since there is a strong correlation between Team Blue and the vocal science community, in a sense someone could drive consensus about a drug to make and studies into Ivermectin political instead of evidence-based - because who wants their university peers to think they are Team Red instead of Team Blue.
Any discussion of the validity of Ivermectin as a COVID treatment is now "political", in the sense that Team Red thinks that its a gift from god, and Team Blue thinks any consideration of it is anti-science stupidity.
And since there is a strong correlation between Team Blue and the vocal science community, in a sense someone could drive consensus about a drug to make and studies into Ivermectin political instead of evidence-based - because who wants their university peers to think they are Team Red instead of Team Blue.
Even though there are peer reviewed studies that show some correlation between Ivermectin and COVID viral loads - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
I'm not saying they did, but its not unimaginable to do.