Reddit mentions of Sorry, Wrong Number!: The Abuse of Measurement

There isn't really any solution you can do for this problem.

If you don't trust what the media tells you, that's a good start. It would be easier to just let the scientists do their thing and sort it out amongst themselves. But it is now a real problem when people cannot always trust the word of scientists themselves. Yet people can't do the research and experiments for themselves because we have day jobs and our own lives to lead, plus IP laws and scientific equipment costs tend to be chilling and prohibitive respectively.

This wasn't a problem until science became pre-emptively politicised.
The solution is for politicians and corporate sponsors to spend more time and money on science to allow the scientific method to run its course, instead of biasing the results and taking action on the first theory that anyone imagines.

I don't see there is much that us lay people can do about it.

EDIT:
This is a good book related to the topic: Sorry, Wrong Number! by John Brignell.