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by Dr Mae-Wan Ho of ISIS
& Jonathan Matthews of NGIN
Science is in crisis.
The full extent of the crisis surfaced when trade union leaders warned
that the integrity of British science is being threatened by "a dash
for commercial cash" in a report published in the Times Higher Education
Supplement (Sept 8, 2000), the main newsprint for University academics.
The Institute for Professional and Managers in Specialists
carried out a survey of scientists working in government or in recently
privatized laboratories earlier this year.
One-third
of the respondents had been asked to
change their research findings to suit the customer's preferred outcome,
while 10% had pressure put on them to bend their results to help secure
contracts.
In Britain's handful of top research universities,
dependence on private funding is acute, often amounting to 80-90% of the
total research budget. The four unions representing scientists and technical
staff have launched a charter, which says that research must be guaranteed
"by peer review, open publication and by autonomy over a significant
proportion of its resources". Commercialization smashes all three
tenets.
The only way to be sure
that science retains its integrity is to enshrine open and clear-cut whistle
blowing, the unions claim.
Science has seldom lived up to its ideal as an open,
disinterested inquiry into nature, as any scientist who has ever tried
to publish genuinely new ideas or findings in the 'peer-reviewed' scientific
journals will know too well. Nobel Laureate Hans Krebs' discovery of the
metabolic cycle that would eventually bear his name was rejected from
the journal Nature.
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, another Nobel prize-winning
biochemist, never got funded for work on the relevance of quantum physics
to living organisms, which is crucial for understanding living organisms
and why cell phones may be harmful, for example.
In the course of liberating itself from the Church,
the scientific establishment has inherited many of the trappings of fundamentalist
religion. There can be but One True Science, and everything else tends
to be treated as nonsense or heresy.
Within the past 50 years,
the suppression of dissent has plumbed new depths,
as the scientific establishment is increasingly getting into bed with
big business. At first, it was mostly physics and chemistry, now it is
preeminently biology. And as corporations are growing bigger and more
powerful, so the suppression of scientific dissent is becoming more sophisticated,
insidious and extensive.
As the scientific and the political mainstream have
both come to identify with corporate aims, so their established power
structures are brought to bear on squashing scientific dissent and engineering
consensus. Witness the seamless way in which the corporations, the
state and the scientific establishment are coordinating their efforts
to force feed the world with GM crops, known to be unsafe and
unsustainable, and to offer no proven benefits whatsoever either to farmers
or consumers [1].
Fall-outs from the GM
Debate
The GM debate had been going on in the UK and the rest of Europe for at
least several years before the press went to town on Dr. Arpad Pusztai's
revelation that the GM potatoes tested in his laboratory might not be
safe [2]. As a result, Pusztai lost his job and was gagged. Pro-biotech
scientists and Fellows of the UK Royal Society vented their collective
ire and condemnation and Pusztai's integrity as a scientist was called
into question.
The Royal Society simultaneously set up its own hasty
review of Pusztai's experimental results [3], without giving Pusztai the
opportunity to assemble the complete set of data, published a report declaring
Pusztai's findings flawed, and warned that no conclusions should be drawn.
The report also reiterated the importance of peer-review before the results
are released to the public. The Editor of The Lancet referred to the Royal
Society's review as "a gesture of breathtaking impertinence to the
Rowett Institute scientists"[4].
Double Standards In The
Science Establishment
However, the Royal Society has never reviewed nor
condemned the truly damnable unpublished and published findings on GM
crops and products offered by the industry, and accepted as evidence of
safety by our regulatory authorities. Nor has it condemned the suppression
of scientific evidence by the industry. There are clearly double
standards being applied. Not only that, outright propaganda
is legitimate, so long as it is pro-biotech, and publicly-funded scientific
research institutions are openly engaging in this exercise.
Industry's Manipulation
And Suppression Of Scientific Evidence
Monsanto's machinations in gaining approval of rBGH
is notorious [5]. An 80-page report entitled, Use of Bovine Somatotropin
(BST) in the United States: Its Potential Effects, was published by the
Clinton White House in 1994, which concluded, "There is no evidence
that BST poses a threat to humans or animals."
Later that year, British scientists revealed that
their attempts to publish evidence that rBGH may increase the cow's susceptibility
to mastitis (infection of the udder) were blocked by Monsanto for three
years.
The scientists showed
that Monsanto's submission to the FDA was based on selected data that
covered up what the experiments had actually revealed - more pus in rBGH-treated
cows.
Over 800
farmers using rBGH reported health problems with
the cows.
Side effects included death, serious mastitis, hoof
and leg ailments and spontaneous abortions.
Monsanto subsequently offered Health Canada scientists
substantial research funding during the rBGH approval process and the
Health Canada scientists also complained of being subjected to suppression
and harassment during the rBGH approval process.
Two respected investigative
journalists were fired from their jobs over a TV documentary on Monsanto's
rBGH, alleging significant scientific findings had been suppressed.
For example, insulin-growth factor (IGF-1) was found
to increase 10-fold in rBGH milk. Increased IGF-1 is linked to breast,
colon and prostate cancers in humans.
Monsanto had also withheld from the FDA data from
studies on rats which showed that feeding rBGH elicited antibodies to
the hormone and the males developed cysts on the thymus and abnormalities
in the prostate gland.
Despite all that, rBGH
milk is still being sold unlabelled in the US today.
Communicating Science:
Sound Science's Double Standards
The treatment of Dr. Pusztai constitutes one of the
most notorious examples of double standards. Pusztai attended the OECD
conference in Edinburgh on the Scientific and Health Aspects of Genetically
Modified Foods [6], where a series of speakers questioned his integrity,
despite the fact that at least part of the research in question had, by
then, been published in The Lancet.
In contrast, Professor Zhangliang Chen, Vice-President
of Beijing University, met with almost universal approval after telling
the conference that rats fed on GM foods in China showed no adverse effects,
entirely on the basis of unpublished research and without any detail on
design or methodology. Pusztai recalled people were even coming up to
tell him that Prof Chen had shown when you do the experiments right, you
get the right results![7]
The Royal Society Guidance On How To
Suppress Unpalatable Truths
The Royal Society then drew up a "Guidance for
editors", which is reproduced with strong approval in a subsequent
House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology Report on Science
and Society [15].
It looks suspiciously like the 'code of practice'
that the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee had
in mind to counteract the press 'hysteria' over the Pusztai affair. It
begins by quoting the Press Complaints Commission Code that, "newspapers
and periodicals must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or
distorted material", and warns, "Editors must be able to demonstrate
that the necessary steps have been taken".
"Journalists", the Guidelines states, "must
make every effort to establish the credibility of scientists and their
work". The Royal Society will publish a directory that provides a
list of scientists. Before interviewing any scientist, the journalist
will be expected to have consulted the officially nominated expert in
the field, who will be able to say whether the scientist in question holds
correct views.
"Newspapers may suppose that they have produced
'balanced' reports by quoting opposing views". Not so, according
to the Royal Society, if "the opposing view is held by only a quixotic
minority." Journalists are told to identify, wherever possible, a
majority view, and that is the one they should present. The majority view
may turn out to be wrong, but such instances, we are told, are the exceptions
rather than the rule.
But the mainstream majority
has all too often been mistaken!
It has been mistaken over nuclear power, climate change,
and the link between BSE and new variant CJD, to name but a few glaring
examples. And it is thanks to journalists reporting minority views that
pressure is brought to bear on the mainstream majority to change their
stance. By then, unfortunately, much damage has already been done. It
would have been far worse if the minority views had never got a hearing
at all.
The Royal Society acknowledges that it is important
for scientists to communicate via the media, but is concerned that some
scientists may be seeking publicity to further their careers or to make
exaggerated claims.
This is blatantly absurd and insulting to scientists
like Pusztai and others who lost their research grants and jobs for expounding
unpopular views and unpalatable findings. To counter this, the Royal Society
wants the media to contact "scientific advisers" (again, presumably
supplied by the Royal Society) who could establish the authenticity of
any story.
On the matter of "uncertainty", "journalists
should be wary of regarding uncertainty about a scientific issue as an
indication that all views, no matter how unorthodox, have the same legitimacy."
The Royal Society insists, once again, that it is peer review that confers
legitimacy on scientific claims.
The Royal Society has
broken new ground in attempting to exercise control over the press.
It has been established practice for decades, if not
centuries for new scientific results to be presented at conferences before
they have been subjected to peer review and published.
Peer review is not and
never has been a precondition for research being brought to the attention
of the public.
More to the point, where there is the possibility
of danger to health or to the environment, it can be totally counter to
public interest to wait for peer review. It took Pusztai nearly two years
to get part of the work published. And in the final hours, a fellow of
the Royal Society, Peter Lachmann tried to prevent the paper appearing
in print [16]. Holding back on a scientific claim until everything is
settled is one thing; not alerting the public soon enough to a possible
danger is another.
The House Of Lord Decree That No Question
Should Be Asked About Safety
For good measure, the House of Lords Select Committee
adds several comments, the first aimed at discouraging sensational headlines
such as those that might damage the image of GM crops; the second, incredible
as it may seem, attempts to purge the word, "safe" from the
vocabulary of the media. "The very question "Is it safe?"
is itself irresponsible, since it conveys the misleading impression that
absolute safety is achievable."
This frontal attack on the English language is actually
a veiled attempt to undermine the precautionary principle in its most
important form, which can truly safeguard human health and the environment.
It entails a reversal of the present onus of proof. In other words, instead
of requiring civil society to prove something harmful before it can be
withdrawn or banned, perpetrators should have to prove something safe
beyond reasonable doubt before it can be approved, especially where the
product is of no proven benefit to society.
Scientists Too, Must Be
Reined In
That is by no means the end of the story. Recently,
a detailed Code of Practice on Science and Health Communication was launched
jointly by the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) and the Royal Institution,
to address concerns about the ways in which some issues are covered in
the media, unjustified 'scare stories' as well as those "which offer
false hopes to the seriously ill". It also claims to be in response
to the call for such a code by the Select Committee on Science and Technology.
The code is aimed not only at journalists but also
at scientists. A draft of the code recommended journalists to consult
only with 'expert contacts', a secret directory of which will be provided
only to "registered journalists with bona fide credentials".
It discouraged scientists from disclosing unpublished results even at
professional scientific meetings, thus breaking with
a time-honored tradition of open communication among scientists.
Although the general impression the Code attempts
to convey is that of wishing to prevent both 'scare stories' and 'hype',
it is no different in substance to the original Royal Society Guidelines
to editors. It is intended to promote the mainstream, establishment view
and at the same time to suppress minority, dissenting voices.
The Code demands that known affiliations or interests
of the investigators should be clearly stated; and that this applies not
only to "researchers who are attached to, or funded by, companies
and trade organisations but also to those who have known sympathies with
particular consumer pressure groups or charitable organisations".
The two cases are, however, clearly not equivalent.
For researchers funded by companies, there is everything to be gained
in terms of both scientific repute and monetary reward in promulgating
the corporate agenda.
For scientists who go
against the grain, there is everything to be lost, including job and career.
The Code goes on to state, "It should be recognized,
however, that a particular affiliation does not rule out the potential
for objectivity ... . All scientists are paid by somebody". This
is a flagrant attempt to blur the distinction between publicly funded
scientists whose allegiance is first and foremost to civil society, and
those in the pay of unaccountable corporations dominated by the profit
motive.
The Corporate Takeover
Of Science Is The Greatest Threat To Survival
Britain might be mistaken for a Third World country,
says a newspaper headline at the beginning of year 2001: chaos on the
rail network, protests over fuel price increases in the midst of the worst
storms and floods in decades, and a vCJD epidemic that may claim up to
tens of thousands of lives. Mad cow disease, or BSE, is now spreading
to the rest of Europe, raising new fears that vCJD may follow in its wake.
The BSE report, published at the end of October 2000,
blames persistent government denials over the link between vCJD and BSE
beef based on the 'best scientific advice' given by the Southwood Committee
in 1989, which concluded "it was most unlikely that BSE will have
any implications for human health". The 'best scientific advice'
is saying the same about GM crops.
The scientific establishment
has failed, again and again, to acknowledge that science is by its nature
incomplete and uncertain and to insist on the precautionary approach.
If the CJD fiasco can teach us anything, it is that
science is too important to be left to the politicians or to a scientific
establishment in bed with big business. Our academic institutions have
given up all pretence of being citadels of higher learning and disinterested
enquiry into the nature of things; least of all, of being guardians of
the public good.
The corporate take over
of science is the greatest threat to our survival and the survival of
our planet.
It must be resisted and
fought at every level.
We must reject the imposition of any Code of Practice
designed to suppress open scientific debate and discussion. Instead, concerted
effort must be made by independent journalists and scientists to promote
genuine, critical public understanding of science, so that the widest
cross-section of civil society may be empowered to participate in making
decisions on science and technology. Only then, can we hope to restore
democratic control of science to scientists themselves and to civil society
at large.
The Institute of Science
in Society Londonia House, 24 Old Gloucester Street London, WC1N 3A1 UK
Tel: 44 -020-7242 9831
Lancet Volume 357, Number
9257 03 March 2001
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