Here's some objective science for you, Jim -- from today's NY Times:
Biotech Expert's New Job Casts a Shadow on a Report
By Melody Petersen
Washington -- A scientist directing a crucial study on genetically engineered crops at the prestigious National Academy of Sciences left last month for a job with the biotechnology industry, angering environmental scientists who fear that the final report will be biased toward the industry's points of view.
E. William Colglazier, the executive officer of the academy, said the scientist, Dr. Michael Phillips, violated the organization's ethical rules, which require staff members to report any conflicts they might have with industries affected by the academy's studies.
Dr. Phillips did not tell academy officials until a few days before he left that he had been hired by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade association in Washington that represents more than 800 biotech companies.
"We had no knowledge until he left that he was taking a job with the Biotechnology Industry Organization," Colglazier said. "If we had known, we would have not had him work on that committee." But he also said the undisclosed conflict had not biased the study.
A spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization said that neither Dr. Phillips nor the association wished to comment.
The controversy is another setback for the closely watched study, which is expected to have a profound impact on how regulators decide to oversee the hundreds of new organisms that the biotechnology industry is creating. Soon after the panel of scientists was formed in March, some environmentalists said it contained too many experts with direct ties to the biotechnology industry, so the composition of the committee was altered to better reflect the environmentalists' concerns.
The study by the academy, which is the leading dispenser of scientific advice to the Federal Government, will be one of the first comprehensive efforts to examine the risks and benefits of the relatively new development of genetically modified crops. The panel is focusing on plants that have been engineered to produce their own pesticides, and whether Federal regulators are properly monitoring the new plants.
The biotech industry maintains that the products are safe for the environment and for the humans who consume them, but there is not enough data to verify that claim.
Colglazier said he did not think that Dr. Phillip's undisclosed conflict had biased the study. Members of the scientific panel are reviewing a draft of the report, he said, adding, "The committee members are free to make whatever changes they want."
The study is expected to be completed this fall.
Dr. Phillips told panel members on July 6 that he was leaving, but he did not say where he would be working, said Dr. Rebecca Goldburg, a scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who is on the biotech panel.
On July 20, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, based in Washington, promoted its hiring of Dr. Phillips in a news release. The association said Dr. Phillips would have a "key role in representing the agbiotech industry on domestic policy and international trade issues."
Dr. Goldburg and other environmental scientists said they thought Dr. Phillips had been discussing a job offer with the association while he was directing the study.
"Dr. Phillips had a serious conflict of interest," Dr. Goldburg said, adding that she was concerned that the integrity of the panel's report would be tainted.
The scientists on the panel are investigating a form of the biotech crops that have been genetically altered to produce their own pesticides. The most popular of these is a corn plant that contains a toxin in its tissues that kills corn borer pests.
This spring, American farmers planted millions of acres of this pesticide-producing corn. Some environmentalists have warned that the new crops could kill insects that are not pests. Some of those fears were verified recently in a laboratory experiment when researchers found that monarch butterflies died when they ate pollen from the modified corn.
The Environmental Protection Agency requires biotech companies to perform certain studies to determine what effects their products will have on the environment. While some scientists say that Federal regulators are not doing enough to protect the environment, others say the regulatory burden is too great.
Dr. Phillips, who was director of the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources at the academy, helped to find outside experts to sit on the panel. He also participated in all of the panel's meetings, Dr. Goldburg said.
"We have always had this revolving door between Government and the biotech industry," Dr. Goldburg said, "but now we have a revolving door between the industry and the academy. Given that the academy is supposed to play a dispassionate role in the making of public policy, I think this is very unfortunate."
[end of article]
More fundamentally, as Rakesh recently noted on this subject: "... we cannot subject the use of biotech to rational use unless the technical and scientific conditions of production have been subjected to the control of freely associated producers. Marxism is not a critique of technological advance as such but of the biases and unplanned consequences it must necessarily have under capitalist relations of production in which humanity is dominated by its own product. A living Marxism would not laud the development of biotech as such but underline that its great human possibilities can only be realized once the expropriators have been expropriated."
Carl