Nature | News
GM-crop opponents expand probe into ties between
scientists and industry
Activist group compels records from 40 researchers at US
public universities.
By Keith Kloor.
The agriculture giant Monsanto's relationship with
researchers has made them the target of activists who oppose GM crops.
Michelle McGuire, a nutrition scientist at Washington State
University in Pullman, was stunned last month when activists who oppose the use
of genetically modified (GM) organisms asked to read her e-mail.
US Right to Know of Oakland, California, filed a request
under Washington's freedom-of-information law to see her correspondence with,
or about, 36 organizations and companies. McGuire is one of 40 US researchers
who have now been targeted by the group, which is probing what it sees as
collusion between the agricultural biotechnology industry and academics who
study science, economics and communication.
And that investigation, which began in February, has just
started to yield documents. These include roughly 4,600 pages of e-mails and
other records from Kevin Folta, a plant scientist at the University of Florida
in Gainesville and a well-known advocate of GM organisms. The records, which
the university gave to US Right to Know last month, do not suggest scientific
misconduct or wrongdoing by Folta. But they do reveal his close ties to the
agriculture giant Monsanto, of St Louis, Missouri, and other
biotechnology-industry interests.
The documents show that Monsanto paid for Folta's travel to
speak to US students, farmers, politicians and the media. Other industry
contacts occasionally sent him suggested responses to common questions about GM
organisms.
“Nobody ever told me what to say,” says Folta, who considers
public outreach to be a key part of his job. “There’s nothing I have ever said
or done that is not consistent with the science.”
He adds that he has never accepted honoraria for outreach
work, and that the University of Florida does not require him to disclose
travel reimbursements. But the e-mails show that Folta did receive an
unrestricted US$25,000 grant last year from Monsanto, which noted that the
money “may be used at your discretion in support of your research and outreach
projects”. Folta says that the funds are earmarked for a proposed University of
Florida programme on communicating biotechnology.
Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord says that the company was
“happy to support Dr. Folta's proposal for an outreach program to increase
understanding of biotechnology”, and that the $25,000 grant “predominately
covered travel expenses”. Lord adds that Monsanto considers public-private
collaborations to be “essential to the advancement of science, innovation and
agriculture”.
Seeking answers
Such explanations do not satisfy Gary Ruskin, executive
director of US Right to Know. "I think it's important for professors
who take money from industry to disclose it,” he says. “And if they’re not
disclosing it, that’s a problem. And if they say they aren’t taking money, and
they are, then that’s a problem."
Ruskin's group, which was founded in 2014, calls for
mandatory labelling of food that contains GM ingredients — even though numerous
scientific bodies, including the US National Academy of Sciences, have found no
evidence that such food harms human health.
US Right to Know launched its investigation of academic
researchers after it noticed that several had fielded questions about crop
biotechnology on a website called GMO Answers, which is funded by members of
the biotech industry. The group considers the site, which is aimed at consumers
and managed by public-relations firm Ketchum of New York, to be a “straight-up
marketing tool to spin GMOs in a positive light”. It is now seeking the records
of public-sector researchers — who are subject to state freedom-of-information
laws — to confirm its suspicions.
Ruskin says that the group has received responses to about
10% of its freedom-of-information act requests to various universities. At
least one institution, the University of Nebraska, has refused to provide
documents requested by the group.
US Right to Know argues that the freedom-of-information
requests are reasonable, since the researchers who are under scrutiny are
public employees who are supported by taxpayers. “Part of democracy is that we
get to know what our public employees do,” Ruskin says.
The view from outside
McGuire is not sure why the group is seeking her records,
because she has not contributed to the GMO Answers website. Some of her recent
research refutes claims that glyphosate, an herbicide often used on GM crops,
accumulates in breast milk; it relies on an assay developed with assistance
from Monsanto. Still, McGuire says, “I’m a milk-lactation researcher.”
But Folta’s e-mails show him to be frequent contributor to
GMO Answers. Ketchum employees repeatedly asked him to respond to common
questions posed by biotechnology critics. In some cases, they even drafted
answers for him. “We want your responses to be authentically yours,” one
Ketchum representative wrote in a message on 5 July 2013. “Please feel free to
edit or draft all-new responses.”
“They thought they could save me time by providing canned
answers,” Folta says of his “extremely annoying” Ketchum contacts. “And I don’t
know if I used them, modified them or what, but they stopped doing it at some
point.” He adds that the correspondence obtained by US Right to Know reveals
only a fraction of his work as a scientist, and taken alone does not paint an
accurate picture of his work.
Bruce Chassy, a toxicologist at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign who is the subject of two freedom-of-information requests
by US Right to Know, says that his e-mails would reveal a similar portrait of
“people trying to defend the science against malicious attacks”.
But Chassy acknowledges the ethical questions raised by
close relationships between the biotech industry and the public sector. “Are we
working for them, or are they working for us?” he asks. “Probably a little bit
of both” — in part because universities and companies often have overlapping
research interests. The extent of this overlap is what US Right to Know aims to
reveal in full.
Michael Halpern, an expert on scientific integrity at the
Union of Concern Scientists in Washington DC, says that Folta's case suggests
that universities should do more to educate researchers on what constitutes a
conflict of interest and what types of financial relationships should be
disclosed.
“It behooves scientists to disclose their funding sources so
there's no perception of inappropriate influence,” Halpern says. “But that
doesn’t mean all private money is tainted or suspect.”
Nature 524, 145–146
(13 August 2015)
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