Credibility of Scientists: Industry versus Public Interest
Referencing: Assessing the Reliability and Credibility of Industry Science and Scientists
In their article "Assessing the Reliability and Credibility of Industry Science and Scientists," Barrow and Conrad (2006) demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the nuances of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (1972). They accurately pointed out that the act draws a distinction between conflicts of interest, which hinge on financial self-interest, and bias, which may exist for a host of reasons including research funding sources.
Alas, in their haste to condemn public interest groups who wish the government would adhere to the letter and spirit of that law, Barrow and Conrad (2006) incorrectly characterized objections by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the Environmenal Working Group (EWG) to two scientists nominated in December 2004 to sit on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advisory panel evaluating the risk of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) (EWG and CSPI 2004). This misrepresentation may have helped prove their thesis, but it in no way reflects what is actually going on at the U.S. EPA, the National Academies of Sciences, and other agencies that routinely form advisory panels.
Barrow and Conrad (2006) suggested that the CSPI and the EWG challenged two scientists because they were "funded by industry." In fact, there were nine industry-funded scientists listed as potential candidates for this panel. The two scientists singled out by the CSPI and the EWG currently or previously worked for DuPont or 3M, which have a direct financial stake in the outcome of the committee's deliberations (EWG and CSPI 2004). Thus, these scientists were covered by the conflict of interest standard, not the bias standard.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (1972) states that scientists with conflicts of interest cannot serve on federal advisory committees unless their expertise cannot be recruited elsewhere. The EWG and CSPI (2004) suggested that there were other scientists available with the requisite expertise. The U.S. EPA must have agreed with this analysis, because the final panel announced in February 2005 (U.S. EPA 2005) did not include either scientist, although it did include two others with prior industry ties to whom the groups did not object. By contrast, only one scientist on the panel can be said to be "environmental" in orientation.
Barrow and Conrad (2006) saw this panel as proof that public interest and environmental groups are seeking to tilt the playing field against industry. In fact, industry-funded scientists often play a dominant role on committees established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (1972). And, as in the PFOA panel case, those with financial support from industry usually outnumber by a two- or three-to-one margin those whose writings suggest they may be sympathetic to environmental or consumer interests (CSPI, in press).
Barrow and Conrad (2006) concluded that industry scientists should be allowed to serve on advisory panels because "they can provide unique knowledge and insight concerning the chemical in question." No doubt such scientists should be encouraged to present their data to a panel evaluating the health risks of a particular chemical. However, if they work full- or part-time for a company that makes, uses, or competes against the chemical, then allowing those scientists to sit on the panel would be the equivalent of allowing one side in a court case to name the jurors.
The author declares he has no competing financial interests.
Merrill Goozner
Integrity in Science Project
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Washington, DC
E-mail: mgoozner@cspinet.org
References
Barrow CS, Conrad JW Jr. 2006. Assessing the reliability and credibility of industry science and scientists. Environ Health Perspect 114:153-155; doi:10.1289/ehp.8417 [Online 6 October 2005].
CSPI. In press. Ensuring Independence and Objectivity at the National Academies. Washington, DC:Center for Science in the Public Interest.
EWG and CSPI (Environmental Working Group and Center for Science in the Public Interest). 2004. Re: Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) Risk Assessment Review Panel. Available: http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/lettertoepa.pdf [accessed 6 February 2006].
Federal Advisory Committee Act. 1972. Public Law 92-463.
U.S. EPA. 2005. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board Perfluorooctanoic Acid Review Panel. Available: http://www.epa.gov/sab/pdf/pfoa_roster.pdf [accessed 6 February 2006].
Credibility of Scientists: Conflict of Interest and Bias
Referencing: Assessing the Reliability and Credibility of Industry Science and Scientists
In their commentary, Barrow and Conrad (2006), both employed by the chemical industry, argued that industry-funded science and scientists are high quality and unbiased, and this is enforced through policies and practices such as disclosure of funding sources in scientific journals, guidelines for Good Laboratory Practices, peer review, the scientific process of independent repeatability, various federal laws, and the prospect of tort liability. Ironically, these same mechanisms have publicly revealed the often successful efforts by industry to weaken the regulation of their products.
The current checks and balances cited by Barrow and Conrad (2006) are not always effective guards against biased or even bad science. Numerous examples of biased industry science have been reported in the scientific literature:
- In an article co-authored by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists, Dearfield et al. (1993) compared the results from registrant-submitted mutagenicity studies to the U.S. EPA Office of Pesticide Programs with those from the published literature. The authors reported a selection bias, in which registrant-submitted studies on atrazine mutagenicity were all negative (no mutagenic activity), whereas over a dozen studies in the published literature reported mutagenic activity.
-
In an analysis of studies submitted to the U.S. EPA on the effects of atrazine on frog reproductive development, Hayes (2004) reported that financial sponsorship was a strong predictor of study outcome (p = 0.009). Funding sources varied for studies reporting adverse effects (including government and industry funding), whereas all of the studies that failed to detect adverse effects were funded by the manufacturer of atrazine.
-
In an analysis of 115 published studies on low-dose effects of the plastics-component bisphenol A, vom Saal and Hughes (2005) reported that > 90% of government-funded studies found significant low-dose effects, whereas none of the industry-funded studies did. More specifically, the authors found that,
Some industry-funded studies have ignored the results of positive controls, and many studies reporting no significant effects used a strain of rat that is inappropriate for the study of estrogenic responses. (vom Saal and Hughes 2005)
-
Studies of documents from the tobacco industry archives have revealed evidence of concerted industry efforts to obscure the contribution of secondhand smoke and other environmental toxics to disease through the development of their own version of "good epidemiological practices" and "sound science" (Ong and Glantz 2001).
As Barrow and Conrad (2006) pointed out, federal scientific advisory committees and the National Academies want to include relevant experts, and therefore may appoint industry experts despite direct financial conflicts. As a solution, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) sometimes invites financially conflicted experts to speak to the committee but bars them from drafting documents or voting on evaluations (Cogliano et al. 2004). Prompt implementation of strict conflict guidelines (similar to those adopted by IARC) by the U.S. government and the National Academies should be a high priority. An editorial in the Lancet (2002) warned,
Members of expert panels need to be impartial and credible, and free of partisan conflicts of interest, especially in industry links or in right-wing or religious ideology.
Barrow and Conrad (2006) argued that I am biased because my work on scientific integrity is funded by a private foundation. However, there is no financial stake in the regulation of toxics for myself, my employer, or my funders. Moreover, the funders do not review or comment on my prepublication work or influence my work product in any way. I consistently acknowledge a bias towards ensuring that regulations of toxic chemicals are as health protective as feasible, consistent with the U.S. EPA's stated goal--"to protect human health and the environment" (U.S. EPA 2005).
The author is employed by an environmental nonprofit organization with an interest in ensuring that regulations of toxic chemicals are as health protective as feasible.
Jennifer Sass
Natural Resources Defense Council
Washington, DC
E-mail: jsass@nrdc.org
References
Barrow CS, Conrad JW Jr. 2006. Assessing the reliability and credibility of industry science and scientists. Environ Health Perspect 114:153-155; doi:10.1289/ehp.8417 [Online 6 October 2005].
Cogliano VJ, Baan RA, Straif K, Grosse Y, Secretan MB, El Ghissassi F, et al. 2004. The science and practice of carcinogen identification and evaluation. Environ Health Perspect 112:1269-1274.
Dearfield KL, Stack HF, Quest JA, Whiting RJ, Waters MD. 1993. A survey of EPA/OPP and open literature data on selected pesticide chemicals tested for mutagenicity. I. Introduction and first ten chemicals. Mutat Res 297(3):197-233.
Hayes T. 2004. There is no denying this: defusing the confusion about atrazine. BioScience 54(12):1138-1149.
Lancet. 2002. Keeping scientific advice non-partisan. Lancet 360(9345):1525.
Ong EK, Glantz SA. 2001. Constructing “sound science” and “good epidemiology”: tobacco, lawyers, and public relations firms. Am J Public Health 91(11):1749-1757.
U.S. EPA. 2005. Our Mission. Available: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/aboutepa.htm [accessed 18 October 2005].
vom Saal FS, Hughes C. 2005. An extensive new literature concerning low-dose effects of bisphenol A shows the need for a new risk assessment. Environ Health Perspect 113:926-933.
Credibility of Scientists: Barrow and Conrad Respond
We appreciate Goozner's compliment that our commentary (Barrow and Conrad 2006) demonstrates "a sophisticated understanding of the nuances of the Federal Advisory Committee Act." We wish we could take credit for "accurately point[ing] out that the act draws a distinction between conflicts of interest . . . and bias," except that it does not--as we noted; federal rules under the Ethics in Government Act (1978) make the distinction. We did not, however, incorrectly misrepresent the Center for Science in the Public Interest's (CSPI) basis for opposing the nominations of two scientists to sit on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) panel. We said that the CSPI opposed them because they were "funded by industry" (Barrow and Conrad 2006). Goozner characterizes this statement as implying that the scientists were only biased, whereas in his view the scientists really "were covered by the conflict of interest standard" because they "currently or previously worked for DuPont." Alas, the scientists did not have a conflict of interest under the federal standard, which only applies to current employment or ownership (Office of Government Ethics 1997). The CSPI's own press release makes clear that one of the two scientists, an academic, "four years ago conducted 3M's $1.3-million study of . . . PFOA," and that the other scientist, "[p]rior to working for [his current employer], spent many years working for DuPont . . . ." (CSPI 2004). Neither scientist worked for DuPont, or had a conflict of interest under federal rules, when he was being considered for the U.S. EPA panel.
In her letter, Sass cites four studies, involving three politically controversial chemicals, purporting to show that industry-funded research is more likely to find no adverse effects from the chemical studied, whereas government-funded studies are more likely to detect such effects. The authors of one of those studies at least recognized that these findings have two plausible interpretations: either "industry-funded scientists [are] under real or perceived pressure to find or publish only data suggesting negative outcomes," or "government-funded scientists [are] under real or perceived pressure to find or publish only data suggesting adverse outcomes . . . " (vom Saal and Hughes 2005). Pielke (2005) observed that such obsessive focus on funding leads journalists in particular to conclude that "research findings are 'in the eye of the beholder,'" a result he believes is "damaging to science and its role in policy."
Sass urges the U.S. government and the National Academies to adopt more stringent conflict of interest guidelines, quoting a Lancet (2002) editorial that actually addressed manipulation of scientific panels by politicians. In an earlier commentary, more to the point, the editor of Lancet (Horton 1997) argued that financial conflicts "may not be [more] influential" than biases and that "interpretations of scientific data will always be refracted through the experiences and biases of the authors." He contended that disqualifying researchers from writing editorials or reviews because of their "'associations'" with industry "may harm free discussion in science." Horton (1997) concluded that "[t]he only way to minimize bias among interpretations is to allow maximum dialogue from all parties, irrespective of their interests." Making government conflict or bias rules more exclusionary will not serve that end.
C.B. is employed by the Dow Chemical Company. J.C. is employed by the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that represents chemical manufacturers.
Craig S. Barrow
The Dow Chemical Company
Washington, DC
E-mail: cbarrow@dow.com
James W. Conrad Jr.
American Chemistry Council
E-mail: james_conrad@americanchemistry.com
References
Barrow CS, Conrad JW Jr. 2006. Assessing the reliability and credibility of industry science and scientists. Environ Health Perspect 114:153-155; doi:10.1289/ehp.8417 [Online 6 October 2005].
CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest). 2004. CSPI, Environmental Working Group Challenge Two Scientists on EPA Panel. Available: http://cspinet.org/integrity/press/200412091.html [accessed 28 November 2005].
Ethics in Government Act. 1978. Ethics in Government Act. 5A U.S.C.
Horton R. 1997. Conflicts of interest in clinical research: opprobrium or obsession? Lancet 349:1112-1113. [CrossRef].
Lancet. 2002. Keeping scientific advice non-partisan. Lancet 360(9345):1525.
Office of Government Ethics. 1997. Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch. 5CFR2635.402(e).
Pielke R Jr. 2005. Conflicts of Interest. Available: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000408conflicts_of_interes.html [accessed 28 November 2005].
vom Saal FS, Hughes C. 2005. An extensive new literature concerning low-dose effects of bisphenol A shows the need for a new risk assessment. Environ Health Perspect 113:926-933.