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Follow-up: Thought Police



I have received a number of phone calls and e-mail messages from individuals
who wish this dialog will go on, and lead to an open discussion of the
growing influence of private sector money and interests on public sector
research priorities, and the ways scientists are allowed to use and report
on data from experiments done with products, or relevant to products.

        The issues people have raised include influence on hiring, firing,
and tenure decisions; ability of private companies to shape R+D agendas when
public funding is shrinking, and departments are trying to avoid laying
people off; effectiveness of fungicides on major diseases, and pressure on
extension to recommend products with spotty, at best, efficacy (and at
worst, documented ineffectiveness); in weed science, the consequences of
herbicide tolerant plants -- research on them, objectivity, are negative
results -- carryover concerns, restrictions on rotations, impacts on filter
strips/grassed waterways, plant damage in the field happening this summer,
poor yields from depressed P uptake -- being reported by extension to the
extent they should be, or does the money flowing into weed science
departments from companies sponsoring/developing such systems dampen
enthusiasm for passing along such information; the science-base for
so-called "resistance management" plans for Bt-transgenic plant varieties (A
senior USDA pest management expert told me a few weeks ago, "There is no
science base for the resistance management plans approved by EPA").

        Good ideas have been offered for next steps.  A survey would be good
-- who could do it, who will fund it?  Maybe the Leopold Center, U.C. Davis
sus ag program, Wallace Institute and others could "team up" to carry it
out.  Maybe a foundation like Kellogg or Northwest Area would fund it, along
with a workshop to discuss the results.  Other analytical efforts could be
commissioned, and reported at the workshop, to get a handle on how big the
problem is, where it is growing, what can be done about it.  The workshop
could be challenged to produce an agenda for the major professional
societies to pick up the task of documenting/monitoring these issues, and
doing something about them.  I am a believer in public-private sector
collaboration, but if the community (land grant researchers and ARS'ers
working with industry, and the companies/commodity groups sponsoring or
participating in such collaboration) does not police itself, the small
percentage of "bad apples" will spoil the barrel, and the stink will taint
everyone.  By "police itself", I mean that any company official or
representative, or person working for a trade or commodity association, that
visits or contacts a dean or department head, a state legislator running an
appropriations committee, a university board member, and directly or
indirectly threatens a person's career, calls into question their motives,
suggests that funding be cut or not provided and/or tries to see that some
individual is punished for doing their job, should be exposed, investigated,
and if the facts show that unethical pressure tactics were used, severely
and immediately punished.  Such actions should not be tolerated, period.
Let me add that I believe companies and trade associations have a legitimate
roll and right to participate in setting agendas, collaborating in research,
funding positions, etc, but they have to remember the difference between
working with a public university and in-house staff and personnel, or
contract research firms.  A few do not; the more money at stake, the greater
the temptation to throw weight around.    

        It will take time and cover for this issue to come out of the
closest.  The people most involved (junior faculty) are the most vulnerable.
A few paragraphs in an article in Mother Jones is not worth anyone's career,
or livelihood (at least for the time-being).  Dealing with this issue, and
setting the stage for more, and positive, public-private sector
collaboration, is a major challenge for the entire land grant and ag
research community, and the community must find ways to counter the adverse
consequences of a few private companies/groups that think that funding
research entitles them to the answers they need to promote, and defend their
products and positions (and when the research does not go their way, they at
least expect respectful silence).  I am sure a majority of ag scientists and
leaders believe that private sector funding is not worth accepting if it
undermines the free exchange of scientific information, as well as the
quality and completeness of the information delivered to producers, other
scientists and the public.  If the community does not take on these issues
effectively, its inaction will, in effect, condone what is going on, and in
time that will affect how the public perceives the systems -- who it serves,
and who should pay for it, for example.  

Charles Benbrook                         202-546-5089 (voice)
Benbrook Consulting Services             202-546-5028  (fax)
409 First Street S.E.                    benbrook@hillnet.com   [e-mail]
Washington, D.C.  20003