We have been lied to, a lot over this thing. And it was powerful, well funded people doing the lying. I have no idea how I can ever trust them again, and don't know why you would.
Do we agree with that much? That we've been lied to a lot on this topic by the very people and offices we rely upon?
I think most scientists
lie very little. They sometimes make mistakes, or are mistaken; sometimes they have biases. But by and large, they do their experiments honestly and tell you what their experiments found: after all, their professional reputation depends on it. There are dodgy scientists who will say whatever they are paid to, and they're usually easy to spot. Mostly, however, once you get outside scientific literature itself, scientists do not control information pathways: government agencies, corporations and media do. And that means information gets filtered by politicians, businessmen and journalists who don't have the same professional reputation demands to accurately represent science.
The question is really what is the institutional pressure to be accurate?
Broadly, I think organisations such as the CDC are
mostly reliable. They tend to be relatively apolitical and have few financial incentives to lie, plus they are usually "science / medicine heavy", so some of the ethical attitudes on honesty of the scientific and medical professions tend to be strong. It would be hard for the organisational top brass to seriously misrepresent science and medicine without causing major unrest. Nevertheless, such organisations do also need to work with government and government policy, and are going to be open to some "flexibility", or pragmatism to favour better consequences over technical accuracy.
But when you start looking at the institutional pressures behind media, politicians and so on... what institutional pressure do they have to be honest? One has to say, vastly less. And so you should not generally expect them to be so honest or accurate.