And here's one supporting your point of view:

http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858E0...

By the way you can find opposing views, scientifically supported for almost any argument you choose.

Which is why truth is so difficult to sort out. Big companies will show you research on how healthy smoking and hamburgers are. Its very difficult to tell, especially since the popular media randomly chooses a side and only report findings that support their view.
Defining credibility is becoming more difficult too, because goverments, once considered a disinterested funders of research now also have their policy to justify (Bush and Kyoto for example)

The question is, what a company means when it says that some "research" was done (usually, it's focus groups and surveys). And whether the research papers were peer-reviewed (not bloody likely).

My father is a biology Professor.
One of his latest research projects involved comparison testing between diffrent toothpastes.
The research was funded by a swiss company, the one that produces the Elmax toothpaste.

He had a clause in his contract saying that the research will be publicized no matter what.
(He said its part of the standard contract)

The research decided that in a specific case (gum problems) a competitor product was an order of magnitude more effective.

The research was publicized, and the competitor used it in a campaign (the one with Gabi Nitsani)

Moral? Don't fund independent research if you aren't sure of your product.

Another story: Microsoft funded a benchmark comparing Linux to NT, the test was highly biased, and Linux didn't look too good. The research was happily mocked by the Linux community.

One of the things Microsoft claimed, is that Linux's thread handling isn't as efficient.

The Linux community may have laughed at the biased benchmark, but the thread system is now fixed :-)

"Elmex"