GM-free Scotland

April '08 | Irina Ermakova and the review in Nature Biotechnology

MAKING THE CASE

A leading science journal recently introduced its own novel version of the accepted process of peer-evaluation of scientific work.

The usual procedure for publication of a scientific paper is for its authors to present their work in a highly prescribed format. The editor of the journal then invites appropriate experts to review the paper independently of each other. Comments and suggested changes are passed between the author and the reviewers, after which the paper is withdrawn, accepted for publication or rejected.

In a departure from the norm, four scientists with no experience of toxicology, animal behavioural testing, animal feeding or reproductive studies, conspired to prepare a criticism of an unpublished experiment on the effects of a GM-soya-containing maternal diet on rat offspring. Dr Irina Ermakova's study had found worrying adverse effects, including increased pup mortality and poor growth (see IRINIA ERMAKOVA AND A CASE OF TABLOID SCIENCE – News, April 2008).

When the article appeared in Nature Biotechnology, the conspirators were introduced at “researchers in the field”. This description is misleading because their 'fields' are not that of the actual study. The four were:

Professor Bruce M. Chassy, a biochemist whose research focused on GM micro-organisms used in food production. He later moved into advisory roles in food safety, nutrition, biotech food, and the regulatory process for biotech crops.

Dr. Luther Val Giddings, seems to have started out as an evolutionary geneticist back in the days when Drosophila sp. (fruit fly) was every geneticists living laboratory. However, for the last 22 years, he has been an independent consultant in agricultural biotechnology, working for the World Bank and the USDA. He is now Vice-President of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), GM's major trade association whose members include AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta. The BIO, under Val Giddings guidance was accused by the Associated Press of 'corporate meddling in academia' when the Organisation provoked a concerted stream of letters of complaint from scientists to the journal Nature for publishing a paper showing massive GM contamination of native maize in Mexico. (COMMENT The ploy was successful in the short-term, because Nature withdrew the paper; in the longer term it may serve to draw attention to the anti-scientific attitude of the biotech industry.)

Dr. Alan McHughen, a plant scientists who turned molecular geneticist. His work has included the development of commercial crop varieties using both conventional breeding and genetic engineering techniques. Apparently oblivious that flax is in the human food chain, McHughen produced a GM version which generated an industrial chemical, and which the Canadian flax industry managed to get banned. In recent years, he has had a number of advisory roles in the environmental and health effects of GM crops and food, and has promoted himself as a consumer advocate writing in consumer-friendly language to explode the myths of genetic modification. GM Watch quotes his claim that “opponents to GM put forward untenable pseudo-scientific assertions, then run away, unwilling or unable to defend their positions”.

Professor Emeritus Vivian Moses, seems to be a retired biochemist/microbiologist, now chairman of the panel of scientists of CropGen, the biotech industry-funded lobby group whose mission is “to make the case for crop biotechnology”. He is heavily involved with the industry-funded pressure organisations Sense About Science and Scientific Alliance.

Note. GM Watch has put together profiles on all four of these researchers whose names will be well known to anyone following biotech industry disinformation tactics. You can read more about them on www.gmwatch.org if you're interested.

From the brief synopses given above, the positions of the four critics are clear.

Besides the unusual format of four commentators speaking in chorus, all the better to give emphasis to their attack, the conspiracy involved getting the critique into print without Ermakova's knowledge nor any chance to for her to reply. The article was designed, unusually and discourteously, so that the critics got the last word. In a subsequent edition of Nature Biotechnology, Ermakova was given space to clarify and correct some of the assertions made about her work. Again, the four were given their opportunity to have the last say in a long letter.

In their letter, the four researchers deny that they are “apologists for the GM industry”. They state “It is a matter of public record that we declare no conflict of interest, save for (Vivian Moses) who maintains a GM information website (Note. Compare this description with CropGen's mission statement given above) that does receive some funding from industry and (L. Van Giddings) who works as a consultant with some industry clients (none of which are involved in transgenic soy)”. They go on to claim to be “agnostic” on the issue of GMOs, “pro-science”, “pro-environment” and “pro-humanity”.

COMMENT: How realistic their self-perception is you can judge for yourself. You might be asking, as others have, is a 'declaration of no conflict of interest' any guarantee of pure objectivity? By 'no conflict of interest' they are referring to absence of any personal funding from industry. On the other hand, who is going to consult an adviser or listen to a consumer advocate who has got things drastically wrong in the past?

There is no evidence that the “researchers working in the field” have any recent hands-on laboratory experience: their collective areas of expertise are in biochemistry, microbiology, insect evolutionary genetics and crop science. These subjects are relevant to some aspects of biotech crop safety, but not to human and rodent nutritional and toxicological effects of GM foods. The first safety assessment of a GM food (a tomato) was carried out by the molecular scientists who had created it. Despite this complete lack of knowledge of human safety testing, US regulators accepted their assessment, and even made it the bench-mark for future GM safety approvals. It seems that this trend has simply been continued.

Their lack of relevant experience is admitted in the published article where the four have jointly written “It is noteworthy that, like Ermakova, none of us has performed or published a reproductive toxicological animal study”. (COMMENT Note that Ermakova is a neuroscientists at the institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology in Moscow. It is probable that both she and her department have extensive experience of working with laboratory rats, especially in the area of behavioural studies. Their insinuation that she is as ignorant as they are is, ironically, better evidence that they shouldn't be writing the critique, than evidence that Ermakova shouldn't be experimenting on rats.)

OUR COMMENT

Given the well-known backgrounds of the four who approached him, it seems inexcusable for the editor of a scientific journal to facilitate such an apparent character assassination exercise. If the editor had wanted valid criticism, he was ideally placed to ask for input from appropriate scientists. It's telling that he chose to avoid this route. A request for comments from a real researcher in the correct field, would doubtless have led to practical suggestions on how to tighten up the scientific method, resulting in a repetition of the experiment under more rigorously controlled conditions. This is something the biotech industry goes out of its way to avoid, and, it seems, succeeds in doing with the willing assistance of science journals.

The accusation that GM opponents run away from justifying their assertions is ironic coming from someone happy to take part in a scheme to make pro-GM assertions in a way which carefully made any defense impossible. Who was running away this time?

We can only speculate on the reason for this conspiratorial adventure:

Agnostic, pro-science, pro-environment, pro-humanity fervour?

Enjoying the sound of their own advisory voices more than scientific investigation?

Terror of being proved wrong? Of losing face? Of a toppled status?

The last point, is an important one. If you have set yourself up as a giver of advice on the wonders of GM in all the highest places in the land, you've dug yourself into a hole with no where else to go. Put another way: once you get off the neutral fence of the objective scientist, you have to justify the mud you're stuck in.

Two scientists who wrote a letter of concern to Nature Biotechnology over its treatment of Ermakova, pointed out the biggest problem with the precedent the journal had set:

“... if the structure of this article is to be a normal or regular format for Nature Biotechnology, then we would recommend that you repeat it using existing unpublished feeding-studies from industry that a self-selected group of critics discusses without concern for a reply from the authors.” They also offered to provide a list of commentators who would be prepared to do this.

We suggest you don't hold your breath waiting for the biotech companies to send their unpublished feeding studies to Nature Biotechnology. We suspect the industry has never liked what it found in its experiments any more than Ermakova did.

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