Conflicted Science: How Industry Corrupts Research

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http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/SearchablePages/2003Newsletters/Newsletter79D.html

 

Newsletter #79–November/December 2003

Conflicted Science:

How Industry Corrupts Research

by Judy Brady

It’s worse than you thought. Most of us who have been paying attention in recent

years are aware that science is often manipulated to serve the interests of

whoever is paying for it. But a first-of-its-kind conference last summer in

Washington, D.C., laid it out.

 

“Conflicted Science,” sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest

(CSPI), was an intense daylong conference during which the presenters addressed

from their own experience the central question: To what extent has the

commercialization of science undermined science itself?

 

Journalists, researchers, and university professors from a wide range of fields

(from environmental planning to pediatrics to criminal justice) recounted how

corporate money has corrupted or stifled their disciplines. Hearing similar

stories from so many people, one after the other, brought home a powerful and

disturbing message: we can no longer trust what is presented to us as “science,”

not even when it comes from what appear to be independent sources. Nonprofit

organizations, public universities, and health charities, all too often

dependent on corporate money, have become the messengers for corporate

interests.

 

The American Cancer Society, for instance, got more than $100,000 in 2002 from

each of nearly a hundred corporations, mostly drug, chemical, and cosmetic

companies. The ACS program “Look Good, Feel Better,” funded by the perfume and

cosmetics industries, is a good example of what happens with such

“partnerships.” The ACS has remained silent about the carcinogenic chemicals

used in most cosmetics.

 

There were stories of purposeful cover-ups in the lead, asbestos, tobacco, oil,

and food industries, but one story stood out to this city-bred attendee. Two

presenters from the South, epidemiologist Steven Wing from the University of

North Carolina and JoAnn Burkholder, professor of aquatic biology from North

Carolina State University, gave graphic and fascinating accounts of how a

particular industry in their state, hog farming, thwarts any scientific

investigation of its impact on neighboring communities—because if there’s no

noise, there’s no problem. These CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) are

not the independent businesses they claim to be but are, in fact, owned by huge

corporations that control all aspects of hog farming. Called “family farms” for

tax purposes, the CAFOs produce five tons of animal fecal waste per person per

year (a human being produces about 80 pounds of waste a year). When there is any

public outcry about the waste dumps, it’s because of the

terrible stench.

 

You can imagine how unpleasant it would be to live downwind from a hog-farm

waste pool, but they do more than just stink. That waste, dumped into huge

lagoons covering acres of land, contaminates the air and seeps into water

supplies (most people depend on well water) as well as streams used for

subsistence fishing, seriously threatening the health of the mostly low-income

people-of-color communities that furnish workers for the CAFOs.1 Hog farming is

one of North Carolina’s biggest industries, so there is no official attention

paid to the steep price extracted from the animals, the workers, and the

surrounding communities for those huge hog-farm profits.

 

The hog-farm industry responded to Wing’s research by demanding to know the

names of people interviewed with health questionnaires, on which he based his

findings. He and his team had promised the respondents confidentiality (they are

the workers on those hog farms), and he could not betray that trust; both he and

the industry knew that such a betrayal would mean no one in a community would

ever again be available for epidemiological research. Finally, after many legal

maneuverings, threats, and counterthreats, Wing was forced to turn over the

individual questionnaires, but he managed to delete the identifying information

first.

 

When asked how the university reacted to his investigation of and publications

about the hog industry, Wing said his job is often on the line. The university

gets its money from the state, allocated to it by the state legislature. The

members of the legislature get elected to office by the power of corporate

campaign contributions. Hog farming is a huge and lucrative industry and

therefore supplies much of that campaign funding.

Industry Weapons

Industries have more tricks than simple economic pressure to stifle exposés.

Tools customarily used by researchers digging for information hidden under

corporate lock and key now serve corporate management in its efforts to foil

science.

 

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), for instance, is used by industries to

force the premature disclosure of data so that the data can be attacked as

flawed before a study is ever completed. And the last bastion of information

gathering, which most of us have considered a powerful and indestructible

weapon—the Internet—is now poised to become one more obstacle to investigators.

Much of the evidence gathered against industries that have polluted our

environment and our bodies has come from using the FOIA to uncover documents

disclosing industrial crimes and proving that industry honchos knew they were

engaged in criminal acts. But today’s paperless communication of the Internet

will render the FOIA useless because a paper trail will no longer exist.

 

What are scientists to do? While most of the conference highlighted the abuses

of corporate money, there were also attempts to propose solutions. None of the

solutions offered, however, were really up to the challenge. Among the

suggestions:

 

Universities should have ombudsmen onboard to help researchers being

pressured by industry

Policymakers must implement the precautionary principle

The media should refer to scientists who act on behalf of industry as

“academic entrepreneurs,” not simply as “scientists”

The definition of “scientific misconduct” should be broadened to include

industry-funded scientists influencing public policy

 

Most people advocated stricter disclosure policies for journals and scientific

advisory boards, yet major medical journals have recently relaxed their

disclosure policies because it’s nearly impossible to find a scientist for peer

review who is not connected to an industry. Further, there’s no way to force

complete disclosure, so disclosure policies really boil down to a voluntary

procedure.

 

The outrage expressed by the presenters and the audience stemmed generally from

the perceived threat to the objectivity of science through the infusion of

corporate money. Belief in the “objectivity” of Western science is a cultural

cornerstone, and it is defended with the zeal of religious evangelism.

 

Yet Wing pointed out that what we call science was invented, as he said, by

wealthy white males, and it reflects the racism, sexism, and other cultural

biases of the society that nurtures it. That culture is increasingly fashioned

by the needs of global corporate capitalism, so that more and more institutions,

from agriculture to education and government, are becoming handmaidens of the

corporate empire. While there are certainly pockets of resistance in science as

in other spheres of modern life, it is unrealistic to expect that science will

remain untainted.

 

Neil Munro, a journalist with the National Journal, remarked that we might as

well bump the science column over to the business pages, since that’s where much

of it really belongs. For those of us working to end the cancer epidemic,

recognizing the reality of “conflicted science” means cultivating a constantly

critical eye.

 

TAKE ACTION: Get informed! Visit the CSPI’s web site for conflicts of interest

in science.

 

1 See Steve Wing’s article, “Social Responsibility and Research Ethics in

Community-Driven Studies of Industrialized Hog Production” in Environmental

Health Perspectives, May 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

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