"Concealing informtion about a drug's toxic effects is a possible
violation of the HYOCRATIC oath."

ISIS Report

Big Business = Bad Science?

Commercial pressures are distorting academic science and society is not
getting the full benefit from the science it is paying for. Prof. Peter
Saunders and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho report on a recent conference in London.

"Corruption of Scientific Integrity? The Commercialisation of Academic
Science" was the title of a day long meeting held in the British
Academy,
2 May, under the auspices of the Council for Academic Autonomy and the
Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards. The room was
filled
to capacity, and people had been turned away.

"Down which river has academic science been sold?" began John Ziman in
a
provocative mood. Ziman, well known both as a physicist and for his
work
on the social responsibility of science, argued that there are two
kinds
of science: "instrumental" and "non-instrumental". The first is
generally
directed towards practical ends, wealth creation, improving health,
preserving the environment, and so on, which are foreseen at the
outset.
It is also generally proprietary (someone owns the results), local,
limited (to foreseen problems and needs), and partisan.

In contrast, the goals of non-instrumental science are not so clearly
defined. It lays the foundation for instrumental science, and fulfils
other roles as well. It provides trustworthy knowledge of the world and
of
ourselves, and is a source of wonder. It helps us develop an attitude
of
critical rationality, reminding us not to accept without questioning,
dogmas, theories, 'facts' or authority. It is a source of non-partisan
expertise, a necessity in an age when governments require scientific
advice in taking many decisions. Non-instrumental science is public,
available to all, imaginative, self-critical and disinterested. It has
traditionally been largely carried out in universities, though also to
some extent in government sponsored laboratories.

Society needs both kinds of science, but there is an increasing
tendency
to focus on practical utility to the exclusion of everything else. This
leads to a new 'post-academic' culture in which everything, in
universities as in industries, is directed towards practical
instrumental
values. All the UK research councils except PPARC (Particle Physics and
Astronomy) have wealth creation at the top of their missions, and Ziman
reminded his audience that particle physics too got its big push during
and after the war on practical grounds. But post-academic science
cannot
perform many of the functions society requires of science, and so by
treating all science as a saleable commodity, society risks losing many
of
the benefits.

If non-instrumental science is to survive, Ziman said, we need new
structures, funding arrangements, contracts of employment and even a
new
culture within science itself. He did not suggest what these might be,
but
told the meeting that developing them must be a high priority for the
scientific community.

The second speaker, Professor Nancy Olivieri, described her travails at
the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, part of the University of
Toronto.
She had been working on Deferiprone, a drug for treating the blood
disease
thalassaemia. The first results had been encouraging, but the
researchers
later became concerned about the level of toxicity. The company
involved,
Apotex, made great efforts to prevent her from informing her patients
and
other scientists.

The result has been a long legal battle, in which the University has
sacked and reinstated her several times. Olivieri acknowledged the
support
of colleagues and of her union, the Canadian Association of University
Teachers (CAUT). She knew of similar cases in other universities, and
it
was significant that in none of them had the institution supported its
staff. She herself had been relatively fortunate, she said, because the
company's actions had been overt: they had written her letters and left
messages on her answering machine. In many cases, the pressures are
covert. You just don't get the grant or the job, and however convinced
you
may be about the reason, there is no evidence that will stand up in a
court.

Olivieri pointed out that to conceal information about possible toxic
effects is a violation of the Hippocratic oath, which incorporates the
precautionary principle. Contracts that require such information cannot
be
binding in Canada because they violate the common law provision that a
contract may not contain a clause that is against public policy.

Many in the audience were aware of another incident that had been
reported
in the press shortly before the meeting, and which also involved the
University of Toronto. David Healey, a British psycho-pharmacologist,
had
been offered, and accepted, a post in the Centre for Addiction and
Mental
Health (CAMH) at the University. In November, he spoke at a conference
that was being held at CAMH, and claimed that the highly profitable
drug
Prozac could cause people to attempt suicide. The job offer was
withdrawn
within a week. Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac, is a major funder of
CAMH,
but both the company and the University denied they exerted any
influence
on the decision. The Canadian Association of University Teachers has,
however, described the affair as "an affront to academic freedom in
Canada."

Like the other speakers, Sir David Weatherall, who recently retired
from
the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, accepted
that
there has to be cooperation between universities and industry. This
will
inevitably lead to problems, which we must try to solve. What John
Ziman
had called non-instrumental science was also important even from a
practical point of view. When medical students were asked which
discoveries are the most important for the treatment of disease, over
half
those they named arose out of 'curiosity based' research. If we
concentrate on goal-directed science, we may fail to solve the really
important problems.

There is also a problem with clinical research because it is seen as
close
to market and therefore something that industry, not governments,
should
pay for. But this can lead to conflicts of interest or bias when the
investigators are financially linked to the company. There can be great
contractual pressures, and Nancy Olivieri's story was very much the tip
of
the iceberg.

There is also evidence that someone who has an interest in the outcome
is
more likely to produce a positive result. The learned journals have
been
slow to note conflicts of interest. Weatherall described as "not
uncommon"
a practice known as ghosting, in which scientists working for a company
write a paper and pay an outside academic to be the "author".

One of the problems is patent law, which he described as being "in a
mess", at least so far as biological material is concerned. What should
be
patentable is a novel use, but the law is at best not clear on this
point.
If it is possible to own genes, that can hinder research.

Weatherall stressed the need for safeguards at the interface between
universities and industry. There must be reduced pressure for
short-term
gains and a rationalisation of the patent laws on biological material.
Journals should demand statements about possible conflicts of interest.
There should be more protection for scientists. This is difficult to
achieve because the usual pressure on them is simply a failure to fund
them, but it would be a step forward to have review panels to sort out
problems. Weatherall also urged that young scientists should be taught
how
to deal with industry; he felt that both scientists and the
universities
were nave, and easily taken advantage of.

The final speaker George Monbiot began by apologising for arriving
late;
he had been at a meeting on the corporatisation of agriculture, which
gave
an idea of how pervasive is the problem of corporate takeover.
Scientists
must join up with the general struggle of society, he admonished.

He reminded the meeting that because the government sees science as a
driver of the growth economy, it ties funding more and more to the
needs
of business. Industry has more and more influence in universities. One
way
is by giving money to departments that are involved in research that
directly affects the company. On the face of it, this might seem
natural
enough, but when combined with the general shortage of funds, and the
presence of many industrialists on Research Council boards, the result
is
to bias academic research heavily into the direction the companies
want.
For example, UK universities spend five times as much money on research
into oil and gas as into renewable energy sources. Yet you would expect
that the latter, being a new field, would require more academic
investment
than does a mature technology..

The government expects research establishments to attract outside
funding,
but this makes it difficult for any laboratory such as the Centre for
Coastal Research, whose function is largely to monitor the effects of
pollution. Corporations are unlikely to fund an institution whose job
it
is to study the harmful effects of corporations. Monbiot pointed out
that
the one pollutant that seems to be studied extensively is radon, which
happens to be almost the only one that occurs naturally and not as a
by-product of industry or agriculture.

In the same way, a disproportionate amount of public money has gone
into
research in agricultural and biomedical biotechnology. Research into
the
risks of genetic engineering, which ought to have been high on the
agenda
of public funding councils, is almost non-existent. Instead, as in the
case of Dr. Arpad Pusztai, whose scientific findings go against the
interest of corporations, he is sacked and villified.

Monbiot ended by charging that scientists tend to side with the
corporations and not with the public. "We need a revolution in the
laboratory", he said, though he didn't say how we could go about it.
When
asked how an independent scientist could work for the public good, all
he
could advise was to set up shop independently, like the staff of the
Centre for Ecology, who were driven out of Edinburgh University for
criticising the government and industry.

There were lively interjections from the floor on issues that were
hardly
touched upon on the platform, especially those that might begin to
solve
some of the problems aired. For instance, little, if anything, has been
done to promote critical public understanding of science by those
charged
with the task, such as the Royal Society's Committee for the Public
Understanding of Science (COPUS), nor have they made any effort to
engage
the public in open dialogue. A public with critical understanding of
science is necessary, both for making democratic decisions on science
and
science-related policies and in ensuring that science is accountable to
society. The suppression of scientific dissent by the scientific
establishment must be strenuously resisted by all concerned, as it
serves
to promote the corporate agenda and threatens to stamp out any
effective
opposition to the corporate take over from within the scientific
community. Above all, scientists need to reject biotech patents and to
recapture public funding for scientific research that genuinely serves
public good.

Unfortunately, the wider issues never got discussed, as the organisers'
concerns seem to be too narrowly focussed on the protection of
whistle-blowers. The corporate take over of science needs to be tackled
at
source, in the structure of governance, in the social responsibility
and
ethics of science. It is not just the individual freedom of scientists
to
tell the truth that is at stake, important though that is; it is their
independence and their freedom to work for public good that must be
restored and maintained.

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