I worked with scientists for many years and have never seen a case of a scientist or a research result "bought" by private dollars. In fact, I know of no cases where even an attempt was made to directly influence such projects.

However, I have observed cases where I suspect the type of research projects selected and how they operated were significantly influenced by the monies available, (where funds were made available through organizations representating the vested interest financing). I have also seen "confounding factors" overstated or understated in results, which, at the time, I suspected were somewhat influenced by where the project's funding came from. I also suspected that, where scientists competed for private funds, the successful canididate selected was the scientist viewed as being favourable to the funding sources interests.

While scientific independance is alive and well, many organizations reward scientists supporting the majority viewpoint and isolate those who consistantly do not. So, I suspect a "group think" scenario can easily evolve.