Keeping the Public in the Dark

Ronald Collins is the director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This article was published, in edited form, in the National Post (Canada), June 27, 2001

Poppycock! How better to describe Terence Corcoran’s column (6/14) and Elizabeth Whelan’s op-ed (6/14)? Both are affronts to the public’s right to know; that is, to receive information in order to make better-informed decisions. Both writers are fanatically critical of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) newly launched Integrity in Science Database (ISD), which provides neutral and reliable information about the financial links between specific university scientists, organizations, and industry (www.integrityinscience.org). For Corcoran, providing such information is simply “a malicious attempt to discredit individual scientists and private industry.” For Whelan, it is a “scarlet letter” practice.

Basically, the Corcoran-Whelan amounts to thesis: People cannot be trusted to make judgments about the scientific process, therefore, truthful information about scientists and their potential biases must be kept secret. Mum’s the word. Such paternalism is curious coming from conservatives, unless the subtext is to champion profit over integrity. And that, apparently, is the goal, namely, to encourage the unbridled commercialization of science — let ethical and professional norms be damned. On that score, however, the Corcoran-Whelan thesis has met considerable, and well-deserved, condemnation. Here are a couple of reasons why.

Conflicts of interest in science have created all sorts of troubling problems, ranging from deaths in clinical drug trials to biased research designs to censored research findings. For those reasons and others, the “disclosure principle” is gaining deserved support in the scientific community. Hence, exactly the same kind of information contained in the ISD is divulged in many respected publications such as the British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, and Journal of the American Medical Association. That kind of disclosure is also the policy of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Admittedly, the fact that a scientist or organization has been affiliated with corporations does not necessarily invalidate a study or a person’s or organization’s views. Clearly, a company has every right to seek professional advice and that may involve compensating professors or other experts. We noted so much in the introduction to our database. And we also granted that funding sources beyond industry are relevant areas of inquiry. That is why the ISD contains a link to a list of CSPI’s own funding sources. Of course, Corcoran and Whelan didn’t bother to inform their readers of any of that.

Whelan, whose organization receives substantial funding from numerous industries, believes there is no need to know about scientists’ ties to industry. For her, all that matters is the end product. Among other things, that argument ignores the fact that researchers have found a notable connection between industry funding and industry-favorable outcomes in scientific research. (See, for example, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1999, vol. 282, pp. 1453-57, 1474-75)

Corcoran, a member of the press, believes that providing information like that found on the ISD is but an “attempt to smear corporate science.” If so, such contempt can also be leveled at the Washington Post’s policy of requiring reporters to inquire about the financial conflicts of the scientists they interview and to disclose conflicts whenever relevant. By Corcoran’s logic, neither science journals nor newspapers and neither regulatory agencies nor universities should inquire about — let alone disclose — financial conflicts of interest. One wonders whether his logic likewise extends to stockbrokers, who have recently been in the news for failing to disclose conflicts of interest.

While we welcome the rough-and-tumble of uninhibited debate, we cannot permit unfounded slurs on CSPI’s integrity to go unanswered. Corcoran portrays CSPI as a “U.S. activist organization famous for its own junk science scares.” That baseless form of drive-by disparagement is contradicted by CSPI’s 30-year history of responsible advocacy. For instance, just last week CSPI-led efforts resulted in Health Canada’s proposed rules for nutrition labelling. A similar campaign in the United States led in 1996 to the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, David Kessler, awarding CSPI’s executive director (Michael Jacobson) the Commissioner’s Special Citation, the agency’s highest award for a private party.

By way of an analogous slur, Whelan charges that CSPI’s database implies that “You cannot disagree with us and be honest at the same time.” With reckless disregard of the truth, Whelan’s group (American Council on Science and Health) slapped that same twisted statement on a headline of its website reprint of a Lancet story (5/26) about the ISD. When the editors of that British medical journal discovered the deceptive headline, they directed Whelan and her group to drop it. So much for their integrity.

In their rush to judgment, Corcoran and Whelan overlook a basic point: If science lacks openness, it likewise lacks integrity; and having lost that, nothing worthy of the name “science” remains.

Email: