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Industry consultant suspended from BPA review panel
LA Times on industry consultant running federal agency
A 'special' kind of risk assessment
from a 'special' kind of firm
Industry consultant runs federal health agency
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EPA widens rift with science advisers
The stress crack between Environmental Protection Agency and its outside science advisers just got a lot deeper. In fact, these days it looks a lot like a thousand-foot crevasse.
The proximate cause: perchlorate, a rocket fuel component, potent thyroid toxin and ubiquitous water and soil pollutant, thanks largely to improper storage at military and space installations over the past four decades. Federal government and academic scientists have detected perchlorate in the urine of every American tested, public water supplies in at least 26 states, many agricultural products and even breast milk. Based on data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Working Group has estimated that as many as 44 million women who are pregnant, thyroid deficient or have low iodine levels are at heightened risk of exposure to the chemical.
Because perchlorate disrupts the production of thyroid hormones essential to normal brain development and is especially dangerous to fetuses and newborn babies, EPA’s 30-member Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee has spent two and a half years pressing the agency to crack down on perchlorate pollution in drinking water.
EPA managers said nothing until Oct. 3, when they made a surprise announcement: the chemical posed no threat to most Americans, they declared, so EPA did not need to regulate it. The decision by EPA's front office, set to become final sometime next month, represented a major victory for the Pentagon and its clients -- defense and aerospace contractors responsible for perchlorate spills and reluctant to pay clean-up costs that could mount into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Faced with what looked like a done deal, the children’s health committee took the extraordinary step of posting a letter of protest on the EPA website.
Continue reading "EPA widens rift with science advisers" »
“Independent” Pet Food Task Force Includes Pet Food Co. Scientists
Reprinted from CSPI's Integrity in Science Watch:
Proctor & Gamble has launched a massive advertising blitz to counter consumer fears about the rising death toll from poisoned pet food. The firm took out 59 full-page ads in daily newspapers, with most citing reassurances from an independent task force. What P&G didn’t mention in the ads for Iams and Eukanuba products was that most of the task force members have financial ties to the P&G subsidiaries, according to Advertising Age:
“Of the seven veterinarians on the panel, three have appeared as endorsers in ads for Iams, another is affiliated with Veterinary Pet Insurance (a company with which Iams has a promotional partnership), another was a speaker at an Iams-sponsored symposium in February, another is a former Iams employee, and the last is a past recipient of a five-year research grant from Iams.”
To sign up for CSPI's weekly newsletter email science@cspinet.org
UCBP?
Last month, when BP (formerly British Petroleum) announced a $500 million partnership with UC Berkeley for biofuels research, the company was hailed as a leader in pushing the oil industry toward cleaner energy. University officials were jubilant over the deal, which would establish Cal – and the Bay Area, where venture capitalists are funding energy startups at a level unseen since the early Web days – as a world center of alternative-energy research and development.
But a few weeks on, not everyone is happy with the shotgun marriage between the nation's most prestigious public university and the world's third-largest oil company. Berkeley faculty and students are asking loudly and impolitely if the Energy Biosciences Institute will be a vehicle for independent research that produces technological and policy change, or for BP to to greenwash its well-earned image as a notorious global polluter.
On a campus known for '60s-style dissent, Berkeley students have staged teach-ins and demonstrations, including a direct action in which protesters in BP lab coats poured gallons of black, sticky "oil" – later found to be organic molasses – at the entrance to California Hall.
A real step toward conflict disclosure
According to EWG VP of Research, Jane Houlihan, would be for The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to prohibit Sciences International's involvement in the evaluation of any chemicals related to its industry clients and develop a conflict of interest policy for all contractors.
The temporary suspension of Sciences International from the BPA review panel is neccessary but is not a comprehensive solution for dealing with cinflicts of interest at the federal health agency.
Industry consultant suspended from BPA review panel
Pressure and publicity from EWG, has prompted the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences announced Monday that Sciences International has been temporarily removed from overseeing the Institute's bisphenol A evaluation while the company's ties to chemical manufacturers are investigated. We will keep you posted on further developments, but do check out these articles for more background.
LA Times (Mar 7)
Toronto Globe and Mail (Mar 7)
Star-Ledger (Mar 6)
LA Times (Mar 4)
New Standard (Mar 2)
LA Times on industry consultant running federal agency
Public health agency linked to chemical industry, by Marla Cone. 4 Mar 07
A 'special' kind of risk assessment
from a 'special' kind of firm
Yesterday I pointed you to the newest EWG investigation exposing the dubious relationship between the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) — an agency under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health — and the consulting firm Sciences International (SI).
EWG found that Sciences International has collaborated with Dow Chemical Co., a major manufacturer of a widely used industrial chemical the agency will evaluate next week, and has also worked for the tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds. Look at this excerpt of a 1999 letter [PDF] from Elizabeth Anderson, president of SI, to R.J. Reynolds, extolling the benefits of her company’s ability to wear many hats—both public and private sector—to wade through regulatory muck.
However, we are different from most other consulting firms in that we also currently serve government agencies . This government work is generally limited to furthering the sciences of toxicology and risk assessment and currently includes contracts with: the Environmental Protection Agency to provide innovative toxicological and risk assessment methodology support ; the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration to provide state-of-the-art toxicological support; and, as noted above, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to operate the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction . Our experience in supporting these governmental agencies in the advancement of science gives Sciences a unique credibility to negotiate with regulators on behalf of our private sector clients, to speak authoritatively in the scientific community, and to be accepted in legal proceedings and by the public.
Industry consultant runs federal health agency
A federal agency that evaluates the causes of birth defects and other reproductive problems is run by a consulting firm with ties to companies that make chemicals the agency is charged with reviewing, an EWG investigation found. Chairs of House and Senate Committees are investigating. [more]
Fool me once, shame on you
Time to get tough on fraudulent science says a panel looking into why the fabricated "advancements" of a South Korean stem cell scientist weren't exposed before publication in the prestigious journal Science.
Science Committee Issues Hwang Report, ScieneNOW Daily News (28 Nov 06)
Journal Editors Are Urged To Demand More Evidence, Washington Post
(29 Nov 06)
Journal reviews conflicts of interest in cancer research
The American Journal of Industrial Medicine reports this month on undisclosed conflicts of interest in cancer research:
Among the cases the Journal investigated were:Some consulting firms employ university researchers for industry work thereby disguising industry links in the income of large departments. If the industry affiliation is concealed by the scientist, biases from conflicting interests in risk assessments cannot be evaluated and dealt with properly. Furthermore, there is reason to suspect that editors and journal staff may suppress publication of scientific results that are adverse to industry owing to internal conflict of interest between editorial integrity and business needs.
- The cozy relationship Swedish professor Ragnar Rylander had with Phillip Morris where he worked as a paid consultant.
- The epic abuse of scientific research by Sir Richard Doll, best known for drastically understating the relationship between vinyl chloride (PVC) and cancer.
The report also exposes product-defense industry advocate Dennis Paustenbach for his role in casting doubt on the carcinogenicity of dioxins in Michigan. It was Paustenbach whom EWG brought to account for ghost authoring a Chinese study denying previous findings of a strong correlation between hexavalent chromium and cancer. The journal that published Paustenbach’s unethical report retracted it in July.
The authors of the AJIM review acknowledge that financial relationships between industry and researchers are becoming increasingly common and call for more rigorous and transparent policies on disclosing conflicts of interest.
BUSTED: former FDA head charged with conflict of interest and lying
From Wonkette:
Ex-FDA chief Lester Crawford pled guilty today to being the latest administration scumbag caught owning shares of companies he regulated.[ link : AP ]Crawford was forced out last year, after a grand total of two months as Food and Drug Administration Commissioner. (He was acting director for three years before that, because the Senate didn’t want to confirm him.)
His official crimes are lying to the Justice Department, breaking conflict-of-interest laws and falsely reporting his stock ownership. For all this, he’ll pay a fine.
British Royal Society: Exxon misrepresents climate issues
Britain’s Royal Society, of which both Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were members, has asked Exxon Mobil to stop financing groups that create a “false sense somehow that there is a two-sided debate going on in the scientific community,” about the effects of global warming.
Spokespeople for Exxon deny having control in the disinformation campaigns of front groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, International Policy Network, and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. But Exxon also played innocent when it’s PR firm DCI got busted creating the “homemade” video, "Al Gore’s Penguin Army." The Wall Street Journal blew the cover on that one by tracing the IP address of the video’s creator. If my PR firm did something that careless, I’d want my millions back.
Additional Reading:
Exxon Secrets: How ExxonMobil Funds the Global Climate Change Skeptics
In the news: Quote of the Day
“It really shows how peer review has just turned into some form of pixie dust that is sprinkled over studies so that they can save companies money when they run into regulatory problems.”
--Former EPA assistant administrator Lynn Goldman, and professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, after reading RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. documents bragging about the money saved from architecting an EPA study to squash regulation of a toxic fumigant.
From: "Journals feel pressure to adopt disclosure rules". Environmental Science & Technology, 20 Sep 2006
White House and Science
True democracy can take place only when all people have access to all information. The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy and Center for Science in the Public Interest for years have advocated for freedom of information about scientific and environmental issues.
Now, a new Salon piece reveals that the Bush administration was changing message on the subject of climate change and is allowing only certain scientists to give interviews. While the administration denies involvement in managing media requests for interviews, e-mails obtained by Rep. Henry Waxman show the opposite.
Alums have a bone to pick with Harvard
Harvard professor cleared of ethics charges is million dollar donor
It looks like Environmental Working Group aren’t the only ones that have a bone to pick with Harvard. At least 17 Harvard alumni, including several leading public health experts, have voiced serious concerns about the ethics inquiry of Dr. Chester Douglass by the university. Douglass has been accused of misrepresenting the research of one of his graduate students that linked fluoride to bone cancer in boys. Why might he do this? Douglass is an employee of Colgate toothpaste, a leading advocate of fluoride.
While the Harvard alums that are outraged aren’t sure Douglass is guilty, they are sure of one thing: a closed-door investigation by his peers raises more questions than it answers. And here’s the latest: It turns out Douglass is one of only six million-dollar donors behind Harvard’s newest dental school building-- a fact that only darkens the shadow of dubiousness surrounding Douglass’s treatment by the secret review board.
[ Link: Fox TV coverage ]
Respected journal brings public to peer-review process
The scientific journal Nature has added a new element to its system of reviewing articles for publication---posting submissions online and allowing feedback from recognized scientists and institutions. The posting of pending research is meant to support, not replace, the traditional peer-review process, which has come under increased scrutiny as of late for failing to weed out shoddy or even fraudulent research. Nature’s editors hope that poorly drawn conclusions and flaws in experimental design, will be more easily flagged with more eyes reviewing them.
The move is a nod to the growing accountability of scientists, public officials, and legislators, to the online community and to the increasing popularity and usefulness of user-generated content. This could become a useful tool for exposing conflicts of interest which have become a hotly contested topic as of late.
[Link: Wall Street Journal (subscription only)]
Scientific integrity cartoon contest
"Ok, Ok--So I Hid My Industry Ties,
But Everybody's Doin' It!"
 |
Recently there's been plenty of debate within scientific, regulatory, and public health circles about the role of industry funding in scientific research and on government advisory panels--with robust arguments from each side. But almost everyone--including the FDA, the American Chemistry Council, and the Society of Toxicology agree on one point: full disclosure of professional associations and financial interests is the bare minimum necessary to safeguard the public interest. Well, according to The Scientist magazine, there's one "expert" out there who won't be swayed by prevailing morality. That man is Dennis Paustenbach, CEO of the risk assessment firm ChemRisk, and repeat-participant on EPA and NAS advisory panels. On his secretive role ghostwriting a landmark study which sidelined efforts to raise cromium-6 drinking water standards The Scientist reports:
Paustenbach, however, told The Scientist that ChemRisk scientists are not the only contributors who have been less than forthcoming. "If the Journal [of Occupational and Environmental Medicine] was using those [full-disclosure] rules over the last 10 years, I think they'd find dozens of papers to have inadequacies in disclosure."
Dr. Paustenbach must've had his fingers crossed when he pledged to uphold these tenets in the Society of Toxicology Code of Ethics:
Conduct their work with objectivity and themselves with integrity. Being honest and truthful in reporting and communicating their research.Abstain from professional judgments influenced by undisclosed conflict of interest, disclose any material conflicts of interest and avoid situations that imply a conflict of interest.
Practice high standards of environmental and occupational health and safety for the benefit of themselves, their co-workers, their families, their communities, and society as a whole.
Past news coverage of ChemRisk misconduct.
Are the National Academies Fair and Balanced?
Today Center for Science in the Public (CSPI) Interest hosted a public forum to discuss conflicts of interest on National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issue panels. CSPI's most notable finding was that out of 320 NAS issue panel committee members evaluated, 18% had "direct conflicts of interest " defined as "a direct and recent connection to a company or industry with a financial stake in the study outcome." CSPI has made clear that they do not dispute the high quality of reports produced by NAS, but feel that full disclosure of industry ties should be mandated and strictly enforced to allow panels to be balanced with scientists who have contrasting views.
Six presenters were on hand at the conference to give their impressions of the report and on the issues related to the intersection of industry and science--not just limited to the NAS, but also including EPA and FDA advisory panels. In brief, here are some of their positions on the matter:
Dr. David Michaels, chairman of George Washington University School of Public Health, believes that scientist with conflicts of interest should be barred from government agency panels that "reach conclusions." He also discussed the results-driven leanings of science firms for hire that manipulate science to help companies clear regulatory hurdles and arrive at their desired outcome.
Continue reading "Are the National Academies Fair and Balanced?" »
New Study Questions Experts' Independence
In a study published today in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, researchers found that over half of the 170 experts that review and revise our nation's key mental health manual had undisclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
All of the experts on the panel that work on the mood and psychotic disorders sections had ties to the drug industry.
Because doctors must use codes listed in this manual to diagnose patients and provide information to health insurance companies, anyone who has input into its contents should be free from even the perception, let alone the pursestrings, of drug companies. Read more in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune or USA Today.
Congress Blocks Ideologues From Health Agencies
OSHA Outsources Worker Safety to Chemical Industry