Trust Us, We're Experts PA

by Sheldon Rampton

  U.S. farmers have already felt the consequences of the growing international rebellion against biotech crops. Between 1997 and 1998, European purchases of U.S. corn fell from nearly 70 million bushels to less than 3 million—a 96 percent drop in a single year.63 In June 1998, U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture Gus Schumacher said American farmers were losing $200 million a year from French refusal to import genetically modified corn and soybeans. Farmers who initially responded favorably to industry’s intense pro-biotech sales pitch have begun rebelling. The American Corn Growers Association, a commodity group that represents thousands of corn growers in 28 states, is encouraging its members to plant non-GMO varieties. “American farmers planted [gene-altered crops] in good faith, with the belief that the product is safe and that they would be rewarded for their efforts,” the American Corn Growers Association complained in a September 1999 statement. “Instead they find themselves misled by multinational seed and chemical companies and other commodity associations who only encouraged them to plant increased acres of [these crops] without any warning to farmers of the dangers associated with planting a crop that didn’t have consumer acceptance.”64 Even the pro-biotech National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the “official” corn commodity group that represents larger growers, can’t argue with market reality. At a U.S. Senate Agricultural Committee hearing, NCGA board member Tim Hume called on biotech seed companies to make sure they offered their best hybrid varieties in conventional versions.65

  As the biotech controversy grows, the food industry appears to be realizing the consequences of ramming through market approvals without full public debate. “Consumers’ faith in the government and retailers as watchdogs over food safety could be broken, undermining one of the pillars upon which the modern supermarket was built,” observed an October 1999 issue of the trade publication Supermarket News.66

  Eyeing the wreckage in other countries, the biotech industry is now fighting against the consumer backlash emerging in the United States. Stories questioning various aspects of the technology and reporting on the international consumer revolt have been appearing in publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and Consumer Reports. In June 1999, the public relations industry trade publication PR Week reported that the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA)—representing 132 firms including Heinz, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble—was launching a multimillion-dollar PR campaign to provide what it called “balanced” (i.e., favorable) information to consumers about genetically modified foods. According to GMA’s Gene Grabowski, the campaign reflected the food industry’s determination to “act before a potential crisis.”

  In a July 5, 1999 story, “Field of Bad Dreams,” PR Week writer John Frank acknowledged that “genetically engineered foods are a PR pro’s potential nightmare,” noting that industry got “a wake-up call” with the May 1999 release of a Cornell University study showing that pollen from Monsanto’s Bt corn could drift onto milkweed plants and poison Monarch butterflies. The Monarch is “sort of the Bambi of the insect world,” according to Marlin Rice, a professor of entomology at Iowa State University in Ames. “It’s big and gawdy and gets a lot of good press. And you’ve got school kids all across the country raising them in jars.” The Bt-Monarch controversy came on the heels of other recent studies showing that Bt crops kill nontarget beneficial insects such as lacewings and ladybugs, kill beneficial soil microorganisms, damage soil fertility, and may harm insect-eating birds.67 However, it was the image problems associated with killing Bambi that sent industry spokespersons scurrying to counter the damage. Discoveries like this could end consumer complacency “in an instant,” worried one source quoted in PR Week.

  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of PR Week’s response to the Monarch butterfly study is the narrow range of options that it considered possible for the public relations industry. “Are we only limited to a defensive role in talking about GE foods?” it asked, answering that PR pros can also make a positive case for them by arguing that biotechnology is “needed to adequately feed a growing world population.” The choice, in other words, was between playing defense or offense for the biotech team. The possibility that anyone might want to flack for the precautionary principle was not even considered. “The law of unintended consequences means studies like the butterfly study are likely to surface, focusing on something company researchers may never have considered,” PR Week admitted, but rather than take such “unintended consequences” seriously, it advised PR pros to treat them as “brush fires” to be “quickly dealt with.” This would entail setting up “early warning systems” to handle awkward scientific studies and activist groups; training seed company officials to deal with the popular press; getting seed companies to publicize their research; and roping in “third party spokespersons” to trumpet pro-biotech statements and opinions from government regulators. Farmers make especially good spokespersons, PR Week advised, because they “garner positive response from American consumers.”68

  The first line of attack against the Monarch butterfly study involved the usual nit-picking aimed at the scientific methodology used by Cornell’s researchers. Why hadn’t they measured the amount of Bt ingested by the dead butterflies? Why did they do their study in a laboratory instead of out in real farm fields?69 (In fact, a separate study by scientists at Iowa State University had been conducted in real farm fields, with similar results.) The second line of attack involved rushing to sponsor a series of contrary studies. In November 1999—barely six months after the release of the Cornell study—the industry-funded Biotechnology Stewardship Research Group held a symposium to discuss the implications of its Monarch butterfly research, even though the research itself had barely begun. Prior to the meeting, the Biotechnology Industry Organization circulated a news release confidently predicting that “a panel of scientists is expected to conclude [that] genetically improved corn poses negligible harm to the Monarch butterfly population.”70

  The news release rather than the symposium itself served as the basis for most of the news coverage associated with the event. The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and other papers published stories with headlines such as, “Scientists Discount Threat to Butterfly from Altered Corn.”71 This contrasted sharply with the observations of one of the few publications that actually sent a reporter to the meeting. “Luckily, Carol Yoon from the New York Times attended,” recalls Rebecca Goldburg, a biologist with the Environmental Defense Fund who was also present. “During the afternoon, she stood up and said that she had just talked to her editors and that they had received a press release from industry stating that the meeting would conclude that Bt corn presented little risk to Monarchs. Carol asked if participants agreed with this conclusion. The answer was a clear ‘No’ from a number of researchers.”72 “Far from culminating in a consensus,” Yoon reported, “the day was marked by sometimes heated exchange and ended with some scientists concluding that the bioengineered corn was safer than had been feared while others said that it was premature to draw any such conclusion. . . . Many of the researchers emphasized that their results were preliminary, with many studies still far from complete. . . . Some researchers expressed concern that so many studies, still far from completion and none peer-reviewed or published, should be given such a public airing, in particular in a forum orchestrated by the industry whose product safety has been brought into question.”73

  In a follow-up story a week later, some of the scientists who participated in the industry-funded event responded to these criticisms. “The scientists say part of the reason they chose to release preliminary data, some of the studies with as little as 10 percent of the work complete, was pressure from farmers seeking more information,” the Times reported.74

  This hasty approach to the airing of scientific results contrasts markedly with the treatment of “dear old Arpad Pusztai,” whose 150 seconds on television brought immediate charges that he had violated an unwritten scient
ific code by publicly discussing unpublished research. Pusztai’s appearance prompted Monsanto’s Colin Merritt to complain about the “unprofessional” way his findings had been made public. “You cannot go around releasing information of this kind unless it has been properly reviewed,” Merritt complained.75 In the months following Pusztai’s suspension from the Rowett Research Institute, no fewer than four scientific panels were convened to attack his conclusions. Sir Robert May, the British government’s chief scientist, described Pusztai’s work as “garbage” and accused him of “violating every canon of scientific rectitude.” The critics were in no way appeased when Pusztai did publish his results in the Lancet.76 Professor Ray Baker, head of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, immediately denounced the Lancet as “irresponsible” for publishing an “unworthy” paper, and the president of the British Royal Society attacked the journal for giving Pusztai’s paper an “authenticity it does not deserve.”77 The editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, even reported receiving a “very aggressive” phone call prior to publication from a senior member of the Royal Society, who called Horton “immoral” and intimated that his job would be at risk if he published the paper.78 These attacks on Pusztai’s work were themselves broadcast through the news media rather than through the peer-reviewed journals where scientific debate is normally conducted.

  Full-Court Press

  In October 1999, to coincide with a two-day U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on ag biotech, the U.S. food industry launched the Alliance for Better Foods (ABF), its first public preemptive strike against an anti-GM consumer backlash. The alliance has its own website (www.betterfoods.org), which portrays genetic engineering as the key to a future cornucopia of nutritional abundance. ABF’s members include the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), the American Farm Bureau Federation, and 24 other trade associations representing virtually every segment of the food industry (except the organic foods sector).79 It is run by the Washington office of BSMG Worldwide, a full-service PR firm whose clients include Monsanto, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Procter & Gamble, Philip Morris, and numerous other large food, chemical and pharmaceutical corporations.80

  The GMA is the driving force behind the Alliance for Better Foods, said GMA spokesperson Brian Sansoni.81 The alliance doesn’t include biotech companies or their trade association, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), he said, but was created to get the food industry “to speak from the same page” in support of the technology. “We didn’t want the activists’ misinformation and scare campaign to be the story—like what happened in Europe,” he said.

  Both critics and defenders of the technology now understand that the brewing public debate over transgenic food may involve even bigger stakes than they originally anticipated. The same vested interests that didn’t trust the public enough to inform it that they were introducing genetically engineered food into the environment and grocery stores are now asking to be trusted as reliable experts on the question of whether this innovation is safe and good. Their fear—and the hope of activists on the other side of the issue—is that the debate on biotech foods could be the issue that awakens the public to the realization that government regulators are not presently functioning to safeguard the public’s best interests.

  Scientists like Arpad Pusztai, meanwhile, find themselves caught somewhere in the middle. Pusztai still believes in the potential promise of genetically modified foods, provided they are carefully tested before being marketed. “Everything in nature is a balance. Changes will bring good effects and bad effects, and you have to decide if it’s worth it,” he says. “In my opinion, in this case, it is not—certainly without testing first. We are not talking about a delicate sort of issue where two scientists are disagreeing. We are talking about our food.”

  Pusztai’s own experience has left him doubtful that corporate and government powers-that-be will do the right thing. “We are told there is rigorous testing, but where is it? It is not published in any of the journals,” he said.82 “I have no regrets about speaking out. I did it for the simple reason that it would have taken me another two years at least to publish the data. Meanwhile, all the stuff would have been on the supermarket shelves. The politicians have been saying this bit of nonsense that GM foods are the most rigorously tested food in the history of mankind. The truth is different, however.” He points to a June 2000 letter in Science magazine by Spanish toxicologist Jose L. Domingo, who performed a computer search using the Medline and Toxline databases and could find only eight published papers based on experiments related to health risks of GM foods—and even two of those citations, Pusztai says, turned out to be irrelevant.83

  “You can count the number of relevant peer-reviewed papers on the fingers of your hands,” Pusztai says, “and that includes the two papers from my laboratory that were published in the Journal of Nutrition in August 1999 and in the Lancet on October 13, 1999. I have a feeling that any unbiased observer would say that this is a very poor record for an industry which is just about to save the world from famine and other calamities.”

  PART III

  THE EXPERTISE INDUSTRY

  In April 1999, the firm of Ernst & Young agreed to pay $185 million in one of the biggest out-of-court legal settlements ever paid by a financial consulting firm. According to the plaintiff, a bankrupt clothing retailer named Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc., Ernst & Young was guilty of “fraud, incompetence and crucial misrepresentations to the bankruptcy court.” Brought in as a turnaround expert to help Merry-Go-Round stem its financial losses, Ernst & Young had actually helped push the company over the brink.1

  “For years, we sold sleazy,” explained Leonard Weinglass, the clothing chain’s founder, describing the store’s successful marketing mix of tank tops, slit miniskirts, and other risqué fashions for teenage girls. Somewhere down the line, however, Merry-Go-Round began to lose its way. Rapid expansion had left it overextended and losing money in droves. Its creditors and nearly everyone except Ernst & Young knew that the company would have to close down hundreds of its stores if it wanted to survive.

  Instead of action, however, Ernst & Young frittered away months conducting studies, producing financial projections, and drafting proposals. Rather than closing stores, it recommended stocking up on merchandise and trying to increase sales. When Merry-Go-Round’s chief executive disagreed, the law firm that had recommended Ernst & Young in the first place intervened to block his authority. By the time creditors finally pulled the plug, the company was more than $200 million in debt.

  According to the Wall Street Journal, Ernst & Young’s legal sin consisted of failing to disclose a hidden conflict of interest. “The law firm that recommended Ernst & Young and later intervened on its behalf had a business relationship with Ernst & Young—one that neither of them had disclosed to the bankruptcy court,” the Journal reported. “Moreover, Ernst & Young had another business relationship, also undisclosed to the court, with the land-lord of some of the stores that could have been shuttered if there had been a quick round of closings.” Rather than serve the needs of Merry-Go-Round, in other words, its advice had helped protect the interests of the landlords.2

  When advising the business community, expert consultants like Ernst & Young have a legal and financial responsibility to inform their clients of any external entanglements that might influence their judgment and their ability to give unbiased, helpful advice. Failure to do so is a serious offense that carries dire penalties. Our society has evolved strong, detailed, and effective laws to protect the interests of businesses and their creditors. Failure to disclose a conflict of interest is only one of the requirements that can bring penalties down upon the head of a financial adviser. In fact, failure to disclose any risk factor that might influence the decision of a reasonable investor is regarded as fraud and can be punished not only with fines but with actual jail time.

  No such standard applies, however, to the experts who inundate the general public with adv
ice on other matters. Neither they nor the journalists who rely on their punditry feel much need to inquire into possible conflicts of interest, or to disclose them when they exist.

  The experts who appear on the evening news and other public affairs programs come from prominent and not-so-prominent universities, think tanks with impressive-sounding names such as the Statistical Assessment Service or the National Center for Policy Analysis, “white hat” nonprofit organizations such as the American Cancer Society or the American Medical Association, and research journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine. Many experts are closely tied to powerful interest groups—typically government, industry, or professional bodies. These interest groups provide them with jobs, access to power and status, training, ability to publish their work in professional and academic journals, and other benefits. Affiliation with these organizations also serves to accredit the experts, enhancing their credibility in the eyes of the media and the public. Establishment experts also often have some degree of power to suppress the ideas of their critics in quiet, behind-the-scenes ways by preventing their work from being published in key journals or otherwise keeping their views from receiving prominent public airing.3

  8

  The Best Science Money Can Buy

  Science has a face, a house, and a price; it is important to ask who is doing science, in what institutional context, and at what cost. Understanding such things can give us insight into why scientific tools are sharp for certain types of problems and dull for others.