Bioscience Warfare

Hilbeck says that she was pressured by her institute to stop research. Syngenta officials accused her of focusing entirely on the bad effects, and not at all on the benefits, of genetically modified corn. But she says the value of risk assessment lies in determining whether previously unknown dangers exist, and, if they do, how significant they might be. "As an ecologist you go out and assess the risks; it is clearly a very beneficial thing to do," Hilbeck says. "But clearly they felt the work was too inflammatory."

Hilbeck was working under temporary contracts at the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agro-Ecology; the contracts weren't renewed. She says she does not feel the same pressure from her current employer, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

The most dramatic and high-profile allegations about retaliation against researchers involve Arpad Pusztai, a native of Hungary who was, until August 1998, the senior scientist at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. He made the mistake of publishing a study on potatoes transgenically modified to make them more pest-resistant without first consulting his institute. He fed the potatoes to rodents and discovered that there were dramatically negative effects on the animals' stomach linings, as well as immunological damage. This was one of the few studies ever done to assess the risks of such food on humans or animals.

The study was published in the leading United Kingdom medical journal, The Lancet. Shortly thereafter, Pusztai's home was burglarized, his files detailing the research were stolen, and he was fired from his job of 30 years at Rowett. Pusztai says he has undergone a slanderous international campaign to discredit him. He now spends much of his time traveling to interested universities and groups telling his story.

"I grew up under Nazis and Communists," Pusztai said during a panel discussion on the difficulties faced by researchers studying genetically modified organisms held at UC Berkeley in December. "But only in the U.K. for seven months was I not allowed to defend myself. How many other papers should have been -- but have not been -- published?"

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Tyrone Hayes worries about the EPA's system for regulating chemicals such as atrazine. When it receives a credible report that a chemical may pose a danger to human health, the environmental agency undertakes a risk review process, but, Hayes says, it is not at all clear that such a process finds or addresses some real risks. The EPA's regulation regime requires that, once a risk review begins, the manufacturer of the chemical in question -- in the case of atrazine, Syngenta -- conduct studies, or hire groups such as Ecorisk to conduct studies. The agency also, of course, encourages independent scientists to submit studies, and makes a decision based on what it believes the submissions show. In this so-called "weight of the evidence" model, the EPA itself does not conduct independent research.

"So what they do is put a call out, and everyone who has data submits it. So what the EPA gets is a flood of papers; [EPA officials] count how many studies support the data, and how many don't," Hayes says. "The only problem is that they are way more flooded with dead animals and contaminated controls than with real studies."

EPA officials say the risk review process is far more complicated and stringent than Hayes suggests. As EPA spokesman Dave Deegan explains, "These decisions, they go through a rigorous, science-based process. ... It is a gargantuan amount of information that we look at. Unfortunately, all data is not conclusive; that's why we look at the weight of the evidence." Still, Karen Heisler, head of the EPA's Agricultural Initiative, a regional program that works to make the EPA's agricultural and environmental regulations a cohesive whole, acknowledges that when she tried to act as a liaison between the media and EPA staffers, few of the staffers were willing to talk to SF Weekly about the process that reauthorized use of the chemical.

Last June, atrazine was reviewed by the EPA and by a scientific advisory panel composed of scientists from outside the agency. Seventeen atrazine studies were presented for review. Twelve of these studies were submitted by Syngenta, and three were from Hayes. The other two studies came from independent researchers, Heisler says. In this case, it seems, the scientific advisory panel and the EPA felt that the weight of the evidence supported continued use of atrazine. In this case, it also seems, the EPA was not overly concerned about apparent conflicts of interest. More than two-thirds of the studies supporting atrazine were provided by Syngenta, the company that manufactures it, and the advisory panel that helped conduct the risk review included Ronald Kendall, the Texas Tech scientist who had led Syngenta-funded research into atrazine's risks.