Source: The
Guardian/Observer
Anger at advisers'
biotech links
Dossier reveals Ministers' worries over
connections between science experts and
leading drugs firms
Antony Barnett and Mark Townsend
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer
Dozens of the Government's most influential advisers
on critical health and environmental issues have close
links to biotech and drug corporations, according to a
dossier of Whitehall documents obtained by The
Observer.
Internal papers from the Department for the
Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) reveal
for the first time the extent of the close connections
between big business and scientists hired to give
independent advice to Ministers. Many work as
consultants for the firms, own shares in the companies
or enjoy lucrative research grants from them.
Confidential documents disclose that former
Environment Minister Michael Meacher and Food and
Farming Minister Lord Whitty, were deeply concerned
that scientists with industry links were dominating
committees on everything from food safety and air
quality to the imminent arrival of GM crops. Both
Meacher and Whitty were alarmed that the scientists'
commercial links jeopardised the independence of
the advice they gave.
· A key member of the committee advising Ministers
on the safety of GM products has received research
funding from biotech giants Monsanto and Syngenta.
Professor Phil Mullineaux also works for the John
Innes Centre - the GM research centre funded by
Science Minister Lord Sainsbury;
· More than three-quarters of the members of the
committee which advises Ministers on food safety
have direct links to major food companies and drug
giants including Novartis, Astra-Zeneca and
Syngenta. Its chair, Professor Ieuan Hughes, has
personal interests in Pharmacia - which in April was
bought by Pfizer to create the biggest drugs company
in the world - and owns shares in BP Amoco where
his daughter works.
· A former deputy chairman of the committee which
examines the safety of pesticides, Professor Alan
Boobis, received research funding from
GlaxoSmithKline for his department at Imperial
College but never declared it. Other members of this
committee have links to agrochemical firms like
Aventis, Astra Zeneca and Monsanto. The current
head of the body, Professor David Coggon, was a
close friend of Esso's chief medical officer and
received a gift from the oil giant.
· The chair of a group examining air quality in Britain,
Professor Stephen Holgate, is a consultant to drug
giant Merck. His university department has received
grants from Glaxo and Astra Zeneca. Others work for
biotech and drug giants like Novartis and
Schering-Plough.
· Almost three out of four members of the committee
advising Ministers on the cancer risks of chemicals in
food and other consumer products either own shares
in or work for major biotech and drug corporations;
While the scientists openly declare their interests,
Meacher was so exasperated by the structure of
committees advising him that he personally intervened
on a number of occasions in an attempt to get more
environmentally friendly members on them.
Last week it emerged that Whitty was so alarmed
about the industry links on the committee advising him
on the safety of farming chemicals that he broke
official rules and hired a toxicologist, Dr Vyvyan
Howard, who is known to be more sensitive to
environmental issues.
In one internal Defra document, Meacher scribbled his
concerns in the margins: 'I do not agree with this. No
member of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides
should have current commercial considerations
because this fundamentally undermines their integrity
and judgement.'
Alongside his comments, a government official admits
that Whitty shares his concerns and will be writing to
the relevant parties to make his concerns clear.
Last night Meacher told The Observer: 'These
committees are absolutely critical. They give definitive
advice which Ministers at their peril seek to overturn. I
constantly argued that nobody with significant
commercial links should be allowed to sit on these
bodies. It is vital they are truly independent.'
Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: 'It
is now crystal clear how big business is setting the
agenda right at the heart of government. The whole
process needs to be opened up and made
transparent. How can the public trust what Ministers
say if their advice is coming from those with vested
interest in the biotech or pharmaceutical industry.'
A Defra spokesman said the committees publish their
members' interests.
He went on: 'Defra has full confidence in the capability
of independent advisory committees across the range
of issues the department deals with to provide
high-quality, well-informed advice and support.'
The Observer contacted many of the Government's
scientific advisers, who denied that their links to
industry compromised the impartiality of their advice.
Professor Boobis, who took legal advice on which
interests he should declare, summed up their view: 'It
is almost inevitable that any scientists of international
repute will have some current or past links with
industry.
'To say we would risk our professional integrity
because we own a few shares in a company is
ridiculous.'
comment by Regush:
July 17, 2003
SCREAM OF THE WEEK
MORE SCANDAL IN THE PATHETIC WORLD OF MEDICAL SCIENCE
By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush
I can smell the stink coming from across the Atlantic. Documents
reveal that dozens of the British Government's highly influential
advisors on critical health and environmental issues are linked
closely to drug and biotech companies. Some of these "experts,"
according to The Observer, actually suggest there is nothing wrong
with this behavior. They therefore reveal themselves as colossal
dimwits when they think that having such a link does not appear to
compromise their integrity. They must be from the distant planet,
Tooth Fairy.
Read the piece in THE OBSERVER and try to keep your head from shaking
so much that it drops on the floor. It is maddening, but on the other
hand, it is simply more of the same. What goes on in Britain goes on
everywhere else. The U.S. experience is particularly noteworthy.
Government advisory committees at both the state and federal levels
are loaded with industry brownnosers and coin collectors. In the area
of vaccines, for example, it is well known that many advisors have
their spines fused to the drug industry.
And this just goes on and on. More and more medical journals are
reporting on this pathetic sort of relationship. And even the
sycophants working in the mass media cannot afford any longer to
overlook how medical scientists have their brains, if not their
self-respect, drained by industry. Yes, I know, the promise of a free
trip to Hawaii or Finland is just too much to resist.
It is bad enough that so many scientists sell themselves to the
highest (or lowest) bidder, but to keep on claiming that having
financial links will do nothing to their "impartiality" suggests that
a few screws are definitely missing.
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