PLOS
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top-tier biomedical journals now require explicit disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, as well as any involvement of outside influences in the design, conduct, or writing of scientific studies. Following a series of scandals involving physicians hiding industry money, the Physician Payment Sunshine Act was passed and is now revealing pharmaceutical-industry cash flowing to physicians, academic medical centers and other key players in medicine.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn4" name="ednref4" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[iv]</a> While not true across all areas of the life sciences, greater transparency toward industry financial relationships, information regarding research methods and outcomes are becoming increasingly realized through the use of clinical trials registries and data repositories.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although transparency has not been proven to eradicate or prevent misbehavior in science, these efforts make it easier for the experts and regulators to independently evaluate the merits of research, scientific practices and resulting public policy. For instance, industry funding of clinical trials invites further scrutiny of study results by experts.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn5" name="ednref5" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[v]</a> An important component to transparency is ensuring public confidence in science by protecting the ability of journalists, government, and nonprofits to uncover potential corrupt practices, especially when the research may impact public health.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Transparency Backlash</font></strong></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the merits of increased transparency, criticism continues. Last June, the<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">New England Journal of Medicine</em> published a series of articles that questioned whether conflict-of-interest policing had gone too far.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn6" name="ednref6" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[vi]</a> The salvo reverberated because <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">NEJM</em> had been a leader of the transparency movement, a point made by several former editors in a scathing response.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn7" name="ednref7" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[vii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A less well-covered volte-face comes from the <b>Union of Concerned Scientists.</b> Like many other advocacy organizations, UCS has long expressed dismay at the distortion of science.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn8" name="ednref8" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[viii]</a><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; bottom: 1ex; background: transparent;">,<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn9" name="ednref9" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[ix]</a></span> Yet within the past year, UCS has begun a campaign to blunt the tools with which the public can investigate claims of scientific malfeasance.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier this year, the organization released a report in which it decried using open-access requests to “bully” scientists and to “disrupt or delay their work.”<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn10" name="ednref10" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[x]</a>The report cited several cases where scientists had arguably been harassed in the name of transparency. In particular they noted the case of climate scientist <b>Michael Mann</b>, who had been targeted by the Virginia Attorney General and a corporate-funded nonprofit. UCS noted that several academic organizations filed legal briefs in support of Mann, but the organization failed to note that this attempt to hide access to public emails was opposed by a coalition of 18 media organizations including <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">NPR</em>, <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">The Washington Post</em>, and the <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Associated Press</em>.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn11" name="ednref11" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xi]</a> The <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Columbia Journalism Review</em> later panned the UCS report, writing that “sunlight is a benefit for all.”<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn12" name="ednref12" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, a tiny nonprofit, the U.S. Right to Know, sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to several universities. FOIA requests are legal inquiries that allow citizens and other professionals to obtain certain information in the possession of various government entities. These particular requests sought communications between scientists and several companies, trade groups, and PR firms, in order to see if the academics were coordinating their messaging with companies.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn13" name="ednref13" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xiii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A journalist reporting on this FOIA request in Science noted that the Organic Consumers Association funds the U.S Right to Know and that many of the scientists targeted are involved with a website called GMO Answers.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn14" name="ednref14" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[xiv]</a> He did not mention that GMO Answers is run by the PR firm Ketchum, on behalf of GMO companies</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn15" name="ednref15" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[xv]</a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn16" name="ednref16" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[xvi]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Upon hearing of these inquiries, a lead analyst at UCS stated, “These requests to the genetic engineering researchers, just like other overly broad open records requests that seek excessive access to scientists’ inboxes, are inappropriate.”<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn17" name="ednref17" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xvii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Access to Scientists’ Personal Correspondence Can Be Crucial For Safeguarding Public Health</font></strong></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Requests under FOIA for personal correspondence are not just appropriate, but crucial to ensuring transparency. The UCS criticism of open records requests played out around the same time the <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">New York Times</em> ran a front page story regarding Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon is a prominent denier of climate change.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn18" name="ednref18" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xviii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The article was largely based upon emails acquired from Soon’s Harvard-Smithsonian account via a Freedom of Information Act request. Those emails revealed not just that Soon failed to disclose conflicts of interest in nearly a dozen papers stemming from some $1.2 million in funding from oil industry and global-warming-denying funding sources, but also that those conflicts went deeper than anyone had suspected: several of Soon’s published papers as well as congressional testimony he prepared – were described as “deliverables” for corporate sponsors.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn19" name="ednref19" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xix]</a> Other emails released under FOIA found Soon eager to discuss papers submitted to journals with potential corporate funders and exposed his role in helping to advance climate denial by pushing disinformation regarding “Climategate,” a fake scandal that involved stolen emails from climate scientists that were later quoted out of context.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn20" name="ednref20" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xx]</a> It’s the access to Soon’s mailboxes — not any official documentation of funding, nor even sworn statements before Congress — that revealed this behavior.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is far from the only instance where scientists’ correspondence has revealed practices which cast doubt on the integrity of research. In November of 2009, for example, states attorneys released e-mail messages and internal documents from Johnson & Johnson and Harvard University’s Joseph Biederman. These internal documents showed that Biederman was assisting the company to convince the psychiatric community that antipsychotics, such as Risperdal, were safe and effective in children.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn21" name="ednref21" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xxi]</a> For example, Biederman told the drug giant Johnson & Johnson that his planned studies of its medicines in children would yield results benefiting the company; Harvard and Biederman himself were paid millions of dollars for their services, much of which was undisclosed. Johnson & Johnson was later ordered to pay $2.2 billion dollars for misleading doctors about the safety of Risperdal, which was being aggressively marketed toward children.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn22" name="ednref22" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xxii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Examining scientists’ communications can also uncover corrupt practices, such as attempts to violate the peer-review process. For instance, while investigating the diabetes drug Avandia, Senate investigators read the internal communications of Steven Haffner, an academic at the University of Texas, who was reviewing a study for the </span><em style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">New England Journal of Medicine</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Documents show that Haffner undermined the confidentiality of the peer-review process by leaking the draft, weeks before it was published, to GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Avandia.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to a GSK spokesperson, Haffner contacted GSK to get advice on how to evaluate the study’s methodology.</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn23" name="ednref23" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[xxiii]</a></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists’ emails have also revealed other mechanisms by which industry exerts control over the scientific literature. A recent Senate investigation released scientists’ emails to show that the device maker Medtronic edited the scientific manuscripts — written by supposedly independent researchers — to support one of their products.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn24" name="ednref24" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xxiv]</a><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; bottom: 1ex; background: transparent;">,<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn25" name="ednref25" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xxv]</a></span></font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such emails and draft of scientific manuscripts are also important for uncovering medical ghostwriting, a practice in which industry-hired firms write scientific papers, rather than the purported authors of the paper. Ghostwriting played significant roles in many of the most infamous drug product-liability cases in the past decade, including those against Vioxx, Prempro, Paxil, Zyprexa, and Avandia.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150818154312/http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/#edn26" name="ednref26" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[xxvi]</a> Without access to internal email drafts of scientific papers, these practices would never have come to light. Denying future access will likely ensure that ghostwriting remains hidden in the future.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 20.3px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Benefits of Transparency Outweigh the Costs...</font></strong></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2015/08/13/the-fight-over-transparency-round-two/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hank campbell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Post Removed by PLOS – The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posted August 13, 2015 by publiclibraryofscience in Debate, Funding, Policy, Research</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">44</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">44</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Previous Next </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">35 comments</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Bad for science and academic freedom: harassing Kevin Folta</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Are there limits to FOIA access to research emails? | Enjeux énergies et environnement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: “What can [we] do against such reckless hate?” | The Sound of Science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Le Marteau des Sorcières | La Théière Cosmique</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Gates promoting GMO’s through Academics | Dolphin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Some questions for Thacker and Seife | SeekerBlog</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: GMO scientist Kevin Folta receives apologies from PLoS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Another PLOS Controversy Ends - But The Media Problem Remains</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Post Removed by PLOS – The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two | SeekerBlog</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: “The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two” - Mad In America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Anti-GMO activists and climate change deniers – no science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: “What can [we] do against such reckless hate?” | The Rationality Unleashed Project</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: » The Trouble with Transparency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Industry funding: witch hunts | Climate Etc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>monckton</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 17, 2015 at 5:27 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I should be grateful if you would allow me, as<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Dr Willie Soon’s lead author </span>in the paper for the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that led to a recent co-ordinated and cruel hate campaign against him by various left-leaning newspapers, to correct various libels that your correspondent has lifted from those newspapers without having bothered to check any of the salient facts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>First, Dr Soon is not and has never been a “denier of climate change”,</b> whether “prominent” or otherwise. The paper we co-authored makes it explicit that all of us, as co-authors, recognize that our returning to the atmosphere some minuscule fraction of the 7 micromoles per mole of CO2 once resident therein may, all other things being equal, make the weather somewhat warmer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At present, however, to the nearest tenth of one per cent, there is no CO2 in the atmosphere at all: the concentration has risen from 0.3 micromoles per mole at the beginning of the industrial revolution to a scarcely terrifying 0.4 micromoles per mole today. And the CO2 forcing is logarithmic, so that each additional molecule by which we enrich the atmosphere and elevate the net primary productivity of global vegetation causes less warming (though more greening) than its predecessor.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the IPCC’s RCP 6.0 “business-almost-as-usual” scenario, there will be 2.75 Watts per square meter of net anthropogenic forcing from 2015-2100. The instantaneous warming from this forcing will be 0.9 K and, allowing for the IPCC’s new and much reduced central estimate of 1.5 Watts per square meter of temperature feedback, the equilibrium warming will be 1.6 K. However, only 65% of equilibrium warming will occur after 85 years, reducing the 21st-century warming to 1 K, of which only 0.5 K, will occur by 2100 because the anthropogenic forcing will arise not as a single pulse today but at an approximately linear rate over the century.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pointing out that mainstream climate science thus indicates that a very small and harmless new anthropogenic warming can be expected this century is not a denial of climate science but a demonstration of it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secondly, Dr Soon did not “fail to disclose conflicts of interest in nearly a dozen papers stemming from $1.2 million in funding from oil industry and global-warming denying funding sources”. For a start, Dr Soon received little more than one-third of the $1.2 million, and that small sum was spread over more than a decade. He would have been better off flipping burgers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To put this trifling sum into context, two other Harvard researchers recently wrote a paper praising the EPA’s anti-coal regulations to the skies. Those two researchers had received between them not $1 million but $35 million, and their sponsor was the very institution that their paper praised – the EPA. At the time when they were writing the paper, the EPA was feeding them information and the lead author was asking the EPA for still more money. The authors, whose conflict of interest was material and substantial, did not declare it. Instead, they conspired with Harvard University to issue a press release falsely stating that the paper had been “independent”. And what did your reporter have to say about that real and serious conflict of interest? Not a word. Why this disfiguring double standard? Is it, perhaps, because the two Harvard researchers who had trousered $35 million from the EPA were toeing the Party Line to which your partisan reporter subscribes, while Dr Soon, a true scientist, dares to think for himself?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is more, the “failure to disclose conflicts of interest” that your lazy and prejudiced reporter libelled against Dr Soon was attributable solely to Dr Soon’s employers, the Smithsonian Observatory, who alone were responsible for negotiating with a single sponsor a contract stipulating that the sponsor’s name was not to be publicly mentioned. Dr Soon, as an employee of the Smithsonian, was obliged by employment and contract law to comply with the contractual obligation of confidentiality.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thirdly, the sponsor of the $1.2 million was not, as your careless reporter suggests, multiple sources but one source. Nor was the source an “oil industry source” but an electricity generating company. Nor can that company be fairly described as “global-warming-denying”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fourthly, your reporter repeats a widespread and particularly stupid libel to the effect that Dr Soon’s description of some of his papers as “deliverables” in annual reports to his sponsor somehow indicates a financial conflict of interest. In fact, the word “deliverables” is a standard accounting term. If a sponsor decides to provide financial support for a researcher, its auditors will expect evidence that the researcher is actually engaged in research. Any papers published by that researcher may accordingly be listed as “deliverables”: but the use of that term does not in any way indicate that the researcher was influenced by the sponsor to take any particular line in his papers: and it is self-evident that none of the papers written by Dr Soon conveyed any particular benefit to the sponsor – quite unlike the two Harvard researchers who were being directly influenced by repeated contact with the EPA and were asking it for more money at the time when they were writing a paper which was intended to be of direct benefit to it, in that the paper praised its proposed regulations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Your relentlessly prejudiced reporter then falsely alleges that Dr Soon was involved in “pushing” a “fake scandal”. This libel, too, reveals far more about the intellectual bankruptcy of your reporter than it does about Dr Soon. For the Climategate affair was a real scandal. It revealed systemic corruption over a decade on the part of a small clique of hard-Left climate scientists who had tampered with evidence, withheld scientific methods, programs, data, and results from other researchers wishing to verify their work, bullied journal editors, and conspired to evade their disclosure obligations under freedom-of-information legislation, all with the aim of falsely exaggerating the extent of the imagined (and imaginary) threat of global warming.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The vicious combination of lies, half-truths, smears and inaccuracies perpetrated by your reporter constitute a grave libel of Dr Soon in his calling (your lawyers will tell you what this means and how serious it is). If, therefore, this posting that sets the record straight is altered or deleted without consent, proceedings for libel will be instituted without further notice. Perhaps your reporter had better go to a re-education camp to learn how to tell the truth.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: When Is Medical Assistant Week 2012 - Medical Assistant Central</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Pingback: Big Organic mounts Asymmetric Warfare attack on public scientist Kevin Folta | SeekerBlog</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stevedarden</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 17, 2015 at 3:45 am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Weaponized FOIA” is a very appropriate term for the FOIA harassment tactic devised by Gary Ruskin and his organic industry backers</b>. Very simply this is “Asymmetric Warfare” against public scientists. The attackers have whatever resources they may need – funding for public relations firms and lawyers. Dr. Folta has only his own personal resources to defend his reputation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am especially outraged at this harassment for alleged lack of transparency. I have been reading Dr. Folta for around a decade. Why? Because when I undertook to understand the risks and benefits of modern agriculture my first task was to identify scientists that I could trust. My doctorate is Computer Science – with no training in molecular biology or horticulture. But I know how to find expertise in other fields. I find some candidate scientists that look to be credible, then put some hours into Google Scholar looking for papers and citations. It’s not rocket science to discover the researchers who have the respect of their colleagues. Then over time it’s a matter of looking at the quality and logical consistency of arguments.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, early on I found Penn State molecular biologist Nina Federoff. Looking at her work and CV I noted that she was a recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Science. Perhaps she is a pretty good choice for a scientist to trust. By following her citations to the work of other scientists a web of references develops. That’s how I came across prof. Kevin Folta.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Folta is very unusual in the research community because he invests a quite remarkable amount of unpaid effort into science communications. RSS is your friend for harvesting information generated by scientists like Dr. Folta who publish frequently on a personal blog, give public lectures, record podcasts, etc. All of the writing and presenting that I found – you can find too. If you do that you will quickly confirm my finding that Dr. Folta is objective and transparent to a level that sets a standard for the rest of us to live up to.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From my experience it is very clear why interests that want to push an anti-science agenda will want to discredit Dr. Folta. Hence the Asymmetric Warfare on his reputation. You can verify my claim by reading his blog Illumination and listening to his new podcast“Talking Biotech”. If you do that you will see that this man is not a shill for any special interest. He is exactly the sort of objective scientist that you are looking for.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are misrepresentations in this post that need to be promptly corrected. Dr. Folta has written a brief summary at Science20 Transparency Weaponized Against Scientists”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rscott</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 17, 2015 at 1:16 am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Would the editors allow Folta the right to reply with his own blog too? Surely that’s only fair and transparent.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rscott</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 17, 2015 at 1:15 am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Could the authors of this blog publish the alleged ‘confidential’ email in its entirety?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That would include the fact that it wasn’t created by Folta, but forwarded to him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Or would that not support their biased viewpoint?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Medical Assistant Job Description Pdf - Medical Assistment Direct</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Backlash? | Shub Niggurath Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kevinfolta</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 16, 2015 at 6:56 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The accounts herein concerning the University of Florida professor (me) are a blatant misrepresentation of fact. The authors have the “CONFIDENTIAL” email in their possession, acting in collusion with activist groups, and the details do not in any way match with their allegations. The authors did not contact me for clarification or information, and simply posted this false, defamatory opinion. The email note, along with the truth about the situation may be found at:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2015/08/transparency-weaponized-against.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kevin Folta</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Transparency is a good thing | Because, Science!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Union of Concerned Scientists: Transparency is Great, Harassment is Worth Preventing: A Response to Paul Thacker and Charles Seife - Gandhi's Be Magazine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Weekend reads: Top science excuses; how figures can mislead; a strange disclosure - Retraction Watch at Retraction Watch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">marymangan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 15, 2015 at 12:01 am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Are you concerned about the side effects of this kind of “weaponized” FOIA, as PEER calls them? I have heard from upstanding public servants that this kind of stuff is such a drag that even though they have no conflict, they don’t want to deal with this kind of harassment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They will leave and go to private companies, or private foundations, or whatever. We’ll lose good people to public service from this.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another side effect could be that corporate money flows to private institutions–which already have more money than cash-starved public schools. And not because there’s anything wrong with state research. They just won’t want to be dragged into the attempted mucking that activists want to do.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I wonder: has anyone looked at FOIAs (or state equivalents) where there was no drama? How much of that is there? I haven’t seen any kind of figure on that. You know–it’s like the negative clinical trial data. It’s missing from the discussion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kkloor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 14, 2015 at 8:51 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>I am the reporter–Keith Kloor–who authored both the Science and Nature GMO-related pieces discussed in this post.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I will limit my brief comments to the discussion of those pieces. For readers interested in a response to Thacker and Seife’s broader criticisms of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), see this rebuttal from Aaron Huertas, the UCS science communication officer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://blog.ucsusa.org/transparency-is-great-harassment-is-worth-preventing-a-response-to-paul-thacker-and-charles-seife-845</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’ll just note that Huertas asserts: “…in making their argument, they [Thacker and Seife] neglected some specifics and misrepresented UCS’s work.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can judge for yourself after reading the Huertas rebuttal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alas, I feel strongly that Thacker and Seife similarly misrepresented my reporting by suggesting that I had left key information out of both my stories.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, when first discussing my six-month old Science piece, Thacker and Seife write:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A journalist reporting on this FOIA request in Science noted that the Organic Consumers Association funds the U.S Right to Know and that many of the scientists targeted are involved with a website called GMO Answers. He did not mention that GMO Answers is run by the PR firm Ketchum, on behalf of GMO companies.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suggestion here is that I did not let readers know that the GMO Answers website was a creation of the biotech industry. In fact, here’s what I wrote in my piece:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It [U.S. Right to Know] has targeted only researchers who have written articles posted on GMO Answers, a website backed by food and biotechnology firms…”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I did not know at this time, in February of 2015, that a public relations firm was running the daily operations of the site. But what I did know is that GMO Answers was a product of the biotechnology industry, and this information was included in my piece.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Further down in the blog post, in discussing my Nature piece, Thacker and Seife write that my Nature piece does not mention an email titled, “CONFIDENTIAL: Coalition Update” which they don’t quote from, but paraphrase, in their words, as an email “from the researcher [Kevin Folta] to Monsanto in which the scientist advised Monsanto on ways to defeat a political campaign in California to require labeling of GMO products.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This is inaccurate.</b> The said email with the subject heading, “Confidential: Coalition Update” was written by a Monsanto representative and forwarded to Folta by another Monsanto representative.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In any case, what Thacker and Seife are suggesting here is that again, I left out some key piece of information to the story. In fact, I’ve read all the emails and in my reporting, I made a judgement–along with my editors–that the most newsworthy information in the emails for Nature readers was, among other things, the $25 thousand grant Folta received from Monsanto for public outreach work, the travel reimbursements from the biotech industry for his appearances at various events, and the suggested answers for the industry-funded website from the PR group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In assessing my stories for Science and Nature, I would have appreciated if Thacker and Seife did not make disingenuous claims with their own selective omissions and misrepresentations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">tphilpott</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">August 17, 2015 at 4:24 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is wonderful: “The said email with the subject heading, “Confidential: Coalition Update” was written by a Monsanto representative and forwarded to Folta by another Monsanto representative.</span>”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">marymangan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 17, 2015 at 6:38 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, Tom, when you go out and give talks at events–would you say it’s typical to exchange some emails about the accommodations and the content? http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/02/heading-californias-annual-organic-farming-woodstock</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Transparency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS complain about transparency initiatives….</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Paul D. Thacker and Charles Seife - The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two - Progressive Radio Network</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: Researcher finds himself center of battle over GMOs and corporate support | Youniz.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pingback: The Fight Over Transparency: Round Two | WilliamSiebold.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Comments are closed.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>