Which Science or Scientists Can You Trust?

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GMW: Which Science or Scientists Can You Trust?

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:10:33 GMT

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Michael Meacher's excellent keynote address is the perfect antidote to

the deceit of the biotech lobbying " independent " scientists of the

Public Research and Regulation Foundation (see previous mail). As Meacher

says, " We should never forget the words of Winston Churchill, who said

'Science should be on tap, not on top'. "

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ISIS Report - www.i-sis.org.uk

 

Which Science or Scientists Can You Trust?

 

Michael Meacher told a public conference on Science, Medicine and the

Law in the strongest terms that we need independent science and

scientists who take the precautionary principle seriously and sweeping

changes

are needed in science funding and scientific advice to the government

that ensures the protection of independent science

 

[Michael Meacher's speech]

 

Which scientists?

 

Nobody disagrees that debate over whether we should go ahead with new

technologies should be conducted on the basis of science, but which

science? Independent science or industrial science? Let me test out a few

examples on you.

 

Fifteen years ago a lorry driver accidentally tipped 20 tonnes of

aluminium sulphate into the public drinking supply in north Cornwall –

nearby residents and local doctors are convinced they were poisoned;

but two

Government enquiries found no evidence. Whom do you believe?

 

There are childhood leukaemia clusters in villages down the Cumbrian

coast – local residents and independent scientists think it is the

consequence of chronic exposure to low-level radiation from nearby

Sellafield; but the Department of Industry (DTI) and British Nuclear

Fuels (BNFL)

think it is nothing to do with local nuclear power stations

- their best explanation is that it is caused by high levels of inward

and outward migration. Whom do you believe?

 

Mark Purdey, a Somerset farmer turned epidemiologist, has produced

detailed evidence to show that BSE was caused by farmers spreading

Phosmetz, an organohosphate (OP), over the backs of cattle as a

prophylaxis,

but the Government's MRC Toxicology Unit - funded by the pharmaceutical

company Zeneca - apparently refuted this theory. Which company held all

rights over the production of Phosmetz? Zeneca. Whom do you believe?

 

Gulf War Syndrome has been a persistent disabling, and sometimes

lethal, condition since the first war in Kuwait in 1991. Both UK and US

soldiers and their independent scientific advisers are convinced that the

soldiers were poisoned by the OP insecticides that they were liberally

sprayed with. But the MOD and chemical companies insist there is no

evidence for this. Whom do you believe?

 

Well, if you have any doubts, look at what has actually happened in the

past when Government, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, have often

finally been forced to back track from entrenched positions that they

always said were supported scientifically.

 

Science can quite often get things wrong.

 

Which science?

 

Government biologists initially refused to accept that power stations

in Britain or Germany could kill fish or trees hundreds of miles away in

Scandinavia; later the idea of acidification caused by SO2 was

universally accepted.

 

Government scientists originally did not agree that chlorofluorocarbons

(CFCs) were destroying the ozone layer; but during the 1987

negotiations on the Montreal Protocol the industry - ICI and Du Pont -

abruptly

changed sides, and ministers and scientists soon fell into line alongside

them.

 

The Lawther working party of Government scientists roundly rejected any

idea that health-damaging high levels of lead in the blood came

overwhelmingly from vehicle exhausts, only to find that after

lead-free petrol

was introduced, blood-lead levels fell 70%.

 

The Southwood committee of BSE scientists insisted in 1990 that scrapie

in cattle could not cross the species barrier, only to find by 1996

that it did just that. And there are many more examples.

 

Scientific uncertainty and the precautionary principle

 

The only way to deal with these problems is by applying the

precautionary principle. Perhaps the classic formulation of the

precautionary

principle was at the Rio Summit in 1992 principle 15: 'in order to

protect

the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by

states according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of

serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty

shall not

be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent

environmental degradation.'

 

That principle survived renegotiation attempts during the Johannesburg

Summit in September 2002, and was reaffirmed in the Plan of

Implementation that resulted from the Summit.

 

Why has this not been adopted by scientists and policy-makers? There

can be only one reason: cynicism of not disturbing powerful political and

economic interests.

 

It is highly disturbing to realise how long it takes for poisonous

chemicals to be banned after scientific evidence emerged that they were

harmful.

 

Benzene was demonstrated as a powerful bone marrow poison in 1897

 

Acute respiratory effects of asbestos was identified in 1898

 

The ability of PCB to induce chloracne was documented in 1898

 

But it was not until 1960-70s that significant progress was made in

restricting damages caused by these agents.

 

Independent scientists vilified

 

Efforts were made to discredit independent critics, as in the case of

Richard Lacey and Mark Purdey in BSE, & Arpad Pusztai in GM food, and

too many other examples.

 

Data and reports have been regularly suppressed or publishers

intimidated, as in the Great Lakes chemical case.

 

The Southwood Committee on BSE believed a ban on the use of all cattle

brains in human food chain might be justified, but considered that

politically unfeasible.

 

There was also incompetence: the Department of Health was not informed

by MAFF (the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now

disbanded) about the emergence of new disease (BSE) until 17 months after

MAFF was first alerted.

 

Pervasive mistrust of science and scientists

 

No wonder that there is a pervasive mistrust of science and scientists.

 

But the roots for this go deep.

 

First, the Rothschild revolution under Thatcher made the funding of

science much more subservient to business interests. Over the past two

decades, getting finance for scientific inquiry inimical to the

commercial

and political establishments has become increasingly difficult. The

science is owned by a tiny number of very large companies and they only

commission research which they believe will further their own commercial

interests. And when that turns out not to be the case, as when research

turns up results which may be embarrassing to the company, they are

most often dubbed " commercially confidential " and never published.

 

In addition, companies have learned that small investments in endowing

chairs, sponsoring research programmes or hiring professors for

out-of-hours projects can produce disproportionate payoffs in generating

reports, articles, reviews and books, which may not be in the public

interest, but certainly benefit corporate bottom lines. The effects of

corporate generosity - donating millions for this research laboratory

or that

scientific programme – can be subtly corrosive. Other universities

regard the donor as a potential source of funds and try to ensure nothing

is said which might jeopardise big new cash possibilities. And academics

raising embarrassing questions (as they should) - such as who is paying

for the lab; how independent is the peer review; who profits from the

research; is the university's integrity compromised? – would soon learn

that keeping their heads down is the best way not to risk their career,

let alone future research funding. The message is clear: making money

is good, and dissent is stifled. Commerce and the truth don't readily

mix.

 

A second reason why there is such pervasive mistrust of science and

scientists is that the scientists staffing the official advisory

committees and Government regulatory bodies in a significant number of

cases

have financial links with the industry they are supposed to be

independently advising on and regulating. A recent study found that of

the five

scientific committees advising ministers on food and safety, 40% of

committee members had links with the biotechnology industry, and at least

20% were linked to one of the Big Three – Monsanto, AstraZeneca, or

Novartis. Nor is that an accident. The civil servants who select

scientists

for those bodies tend to look for a preponderant part of the

membership, and particularly the chairperson, to be `sound', i.e., can

be safely

relied on not to cause embarrassment to the Government or industry if

difficulties arise.

 

Third, the culture of spin and intimidation is far more pervasive than

should ever be allowed. The shocking sacking and vilification of Dr

Arpad Pusztai, when he produced GM research results inconvenient to the

Government, bio-tech industry and the Americans, was no doubt,

deliberately intended as a warning to others if they stepped out of

line. And the

threats and insinuations made clear to the only two independent

scientists on the UK Government's GM Science Panel, Dr Carlo Leifert and

Andrew Sterling, demonstrates all too clearly how viciously the

Establishment will fight to safeguard its own interests.

 

And on spin, how many times have we heard the false argument that is

still regularly deployed by ACRE, the Government's main GM advisory

committee, when it announces that, 'there is no evidence that this GM

product is any greater risk to human health than its non-GM

counterpart'. In

fact they have not sought such evidence directly, merely relied on the

biotech companies telling them that their GM product was 'substantially

equivalent' to its alleged non-GM analogue.

 

Fourth, science is not, and never has been, a value-free search for the

truth. It is a social construct influenced by a variety of rules, peer

group pressures, and personal and cultural expectations. It is

developed, like all human thought, from preconceived built-in judgements,

assumptions and dogmas, the more powerful because they are often

unconsciously held.

 

So what is to be done?

 

What all this means is that science can only be fully trusted if it is

pursued with the most rigorous procedures that guarantee total

independence and freedom from commercial and political bias. That is

far too

often not the case today. The implications for policy are clear.

 

One, if the Government truly wants independent research, it has to be

prepared to pay for it, not lay down, as it has, that 25% of finance for

publicly funded research should come from private sources, thus forcing

the universities into the hands of corporate sponsors.

 

Two, the Government should also require that no member of its advisory

committee or regulatory bodies should have any current or recently past

financial or commercial link with the industry concerned.

 

Three, contributors to scientific journals should be required to make

full disclosure of current and prior funding sources, so that any

conflicts of interest can be exposed and taken into account.

 

Four, we need above all a Government with the political gumption to

stand up to the United States and those demanding calls from the White

House, to stand up to the biotech companies, and to stand up to big

business, and make clear that there will be no succumbing to dominant

political /economic interests, e.g. no growing of GM crops in this

country

until proper, systematic, independent, peer-reviewed research, which is

totally absent at present, has been carried through and made public which

demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt whether GM foods are safe or

not.

 

We should never forget the words of Winston Churchill, who said

'Science should be on tap, not on top'.

 

This is an edited version of Michael Meacher's keynote address to the

Green Network Conference, Science, Medicine and the Law, 31 January to 2

February 2005, Royal Institute of British Architecture, London, UK,

which will be published in issue 26 of Science in Society

(www.i-sis.org.uk)

 

 

The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 32097, London NW1 OXR

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