simkins
<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ref</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html?r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">
</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html?r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html?_r=0</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no links</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> — The bee findings were not what Syngenta expected to hear.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pesticide giant had commissioned James Cresswell, an expert in flowers and bees at the University of Exeter in England, to study why many of the world’s bee colonies were dying. Companies like Syngenta have long blamed a tiny bug called a varroa mite, rather than their own pesticides, for the bee decline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Cresswell has also been skeptical of concerns raised about those pesticides, and even the extent of bee deaths. But his initial research in 2012 undercut concerns about varroa mites as well. So the company, based in Switzerland, began pressing him to consider new data and a different approach.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Looking back at his interactions with the company, Dr. Cresswell said in a recent interview that “Syngenta clearly has got an agenda.” In an email, he summed up that agenda: “It’s the varroa, stupid.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Dr. Cresswell, 54, the foray into corporate-backed research threw him into personal crisis. Some of his colleagues ostracized him. He found his principles tested. Even his wife and children had their doubts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Continue reading the main story</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED COVERAGE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNCERTAIN HARVEST</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops OCT. 29, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNCERTAIN HARVEST</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This Pesticide Is Prohibited in Britain. Why Is It Still Being Exported? DEC. 20, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNCERTAIN HARVEST</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fact-Checking a Claim About a Weed Killer DEC. 20, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advertisement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Continue reading the main story</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They couldn’t believe I took the money,” he said of his family. “They imagined there was going to be an awful lot of pressure and thought I sold out.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The corporate use of academia has been documented in fields like soft drinks and pharmaceuticals. But it is rare for an academic to provide an insider’s view of the relationships being forged with corporations, and the expectations that accompany them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A review of Syngenta’s strategy shows that Dr. Cresswell’s experience fits in with practices used by American competitors like Monsanto and across the agrochemical industry. Scientists deliver outcomes favorable to companies, while university research departments court corporate support. Universities and regulators sacrifice full autonomy by signing confidentiality agreements. And academics sometimes double as paid consultants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Britain, Syngenta has built a network of academics and regulators, even recruiting the leading government scientist on the bee issue. In the United States, Syngenta pays academics like <b>James W. Simpkins of West Virginia University,</b> whose work has helped validate the safety of its products. Not only has Dr. Simpkins’s research been funded by Syngenta, he is also a $250-an-hour consultant for the company. And he teamed up with a Syngenta executive in a consulting venture, emails obtained by The New York Times show.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Simpkins did not comment. A spokesman for West Virginia University said his consulting work “was based on his 42 years of experience with reproductive neuroendocrinology.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists who cross agrochemical companies can find themselves at odds with the industry for years. One such scientist is Angelika Hilbeck, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The industry has long since challenged her research, and she has been outspoken in challenging them back.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Going back to the 1990s, her research has found that genetically modified corn — intended to kill bugs that eat the plant — could harm beneficial insects as well. Back then, Syngenta had not yet been formed, but she said one of its predecessor companies, Ciba-Geigy, tried to stifle her research by citing a confidentiality agreement signed by her employer then, a Swiss government research center called Agroscope.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Uncertain Harvest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Examining the globe-spanning relationship of chemical companies, academics and regulators, and the powerful toxins and genetically modified seeds used to grow food in many parts of the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified CropsOCT. 29, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GRAPHICS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Broken Promises of Genetically Modified CropsOCT. 29. 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This Pesticide Is Prohibited in Britain. Why Is It Still Being Exported?DEC. 20, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fact-Checking a Claim About a Weed KillerDEC. 20, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confidentiality agreements have become routine. The United States Department of Agriculture turned over 43 confidentiality agreements reached with Syngenta, Bayer and Monsanto since the beginning of 2010 after a Freedom of Information Act request. Agroscope turned over an additional five with Swiss agrochemical companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the agreements highlight how regulators are often more like collaborators than watchdogs, exploring joint research and patent deals that they agree to keep secret.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One agreement between the U.S.D.A. and Syngenta, which came with a five-year nondisclosure term, covered things including “research and development activities,” “manufacturing processes” and “financial and marketing information related to crop protection and seed technologies.” In another agreement, a government scientist was barred even from disclosing sensitive information she heard at a symposium run by Monsanto.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Agriculture Department, in a statement, said that without such agreements and partnerships, “many technological solutions would not make it to the public,” adding that research findings were released “objectively without inappropriate influence from internal or external partners.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Luke Gibbs, a spokesman for Syngenta, which is now being acquired by the China National Chemical Corporation, said in a statement, “We are proud of the collaborations and partnerships we have built.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All researchers we partner with are free to express their views publicly in regard to our products and approaches,” he said. “Syngenta does not pressure academics to draw conclusions and allows unfettered and independent submission of any papers generated from commissioned research.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A look at the experiences of the three scientists — Dr. Cresswell, Dr. Simpkins and Dr. Hilbeck — reveals the ways agrochemical companies shape scientific thought.</b></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);">A Reluctant Partner</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For James Cresswell, taking money from Syngenta was not an easy decision.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Cresswell has been a researcher at the University of Exeter, in England’s southwest, for a quarter-century, mostly exploring the esoterica of flower reproduction in papers with titles like “Conifer ovulate cones accumulate pollen principally by simple impaction.” He was not used to making headlines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But about a half-decade ago, he became interested in the debate over neonicotinoids, a class of pesticide derived from nicotine, and their effects on bee health. Many studies linked the chemicals to a mysterious collapse of bee colonies that was in the news. Other studies, many backed by industry, pointed to the varroa mite, and some saw both factors at play.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Cresswell’s initial research led him to believe that concerns about the pesticides were overblown. In 2012, Syngenta offered to fund further research.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While many academics resisted efforts by The Times to examine their communications with Syngenta, Dr. Cresswell did not challenge a records request submitted to his university. And he spoke with candor....</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NERVOUS BRKDWN?</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="196" data-total-count="12504" id="story-continues-29" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, Dr. Cresswell has returned to less controversial areas of bee research. He says he respects scientists he has met from Syngenta, but views collaboration with industry as a Faustian bargain.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="41" data-total-count="12545" id="story-continues-30" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He called Syngenta “a kind of devil.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="173" data-total-count="12718" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What I didn’t realize is that supping with them would actually have a broader impact on how the world sees me as a scientist,” he said. “That was my misjudgment.”</font></p><h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="22" data-total-count="12740" style="line-height: 1.8125rem; font-weight: 300; margin: 33px 0px 14px 75px; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Tangled Relationship</font></h4><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="127" data-total-count="12867" id="story-continues-31" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If some scientists struggle to reconcile themselves with taking corporate money, others embrace complex business relationships.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="204" data-total-count="13071" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>James W. Simpkins, a professor at West Virginia University</b> and the director of its Center for Basic and Translational Stroke Research, is one of many outside academics whom Syngenta turns to for research.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="188" data-total-count="13259" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He has focused on the Syngenta product atrazine — the second most popular weed killer in America, widely used on lawns and crops — often co-authoring research with Syngenta scientists.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="283" data-total-count="13542" id="story-continues-32" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Atrazine, banned in the European Union, has also been controversial in America. Most notably, Syngenta started a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable-reputation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">campaign to discredit</a> Tyrone B. Hayes, a professor it once funded at the University of California, Berkeley, when Dr. Hayes found that atrazine changes the sex of frogs.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="264" data-total-count="13806" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Simpkins has had a different relationship with the company. In 2003, he <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/meetings/web/pdf/072003sapmeetingtranscript.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">appeared before American regulators</a> on Syngenta’s behalf, saying that “we can identify no biologically plausible mechanism by which atrazine leads to an increase in prostate cancer.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="494" data-total-count="14300" id="story-continues-33" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Simpkins was also lead author of a 2011 study finding no support that atrazine causes breast cancer. And last year, he was part of a small team of Syngenta-backed scientists that fought California’s move to require that atrazine be sold with a warning label. He also recently edited a series of papers on atrazine for Syngenta, garnering praise from a senior researcher at the company,<b> Charles Breckenridge,</b> who wrote in an email that the “papers tell a simple, yet compelling story.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="466" data-total-count="14766" id="story-continues-34" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The depth of the financial intertwining of Dr. Simpkins and Syngenta was laid out in nearly 2,000 pages of email traffic, obtained by The Times after a Freedom of Information Act request. Not only does Dr. Simpkins receive research grants, but the company also pays him $250 an hour as a consultant for his work on expert panels, studies and manuscripts, records show. Syngenta even asked Dr. Simpkins to contribute to Dr. Breckenridge’s annual performance review.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="253" data-total-count="15019" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Asking outsiders to contribute to corporate reviews is not unusual. However, Dr. Simpkins is also described in the emails as a partner in a venture set up by Dr. Breckenridge called Quality Scientific Solutions to consult on pesticides and other issues.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="391" data-total-count="15410" id="story-continues-35" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">West Virginia University’s website says that “research conducted at W.V.U. is data-driven, objective and independent” and “not influenced by any political agenda, business priority” or “funding source.” And John A. Bolt, a university spokesman, said that all of Dr. Simpkins’s Syngenta-related research had been conducted before Dr. Simpkins arrived at West Virginia in 2012.</font></p><figure id="media-100000004844732" class="media photo embedded layout-large-horizontal media-100000004844732 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/29/business/00SYNGENTA5/00SYNGENTA5-master675.jpg" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" aria-label="media" role="group" style="display: flex; margin: 45px 0px; position: relative; flex-direction: column; clear: both; max-width: none; width: 645px;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Photo</font></span><div class="image" style="position: relative; margin-bottom: 7px; cursor: pointer; flex-shrink: 0;">
<div class="media-action-overlay" style="transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in; border-radius: 6px; opacity: 0; bottom: 15px; left: 15px; position: absolute; z-index: 5; border: 1px solid rgba(200, 200, 200, 0.8); cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="icon sprite-icon" assets="assets" article="article" images="images" sprite="sprite" sprite-no-repeat.svg="sprite-no-repeat.svg" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" background-position="background-position" px="px" width="width" height="height" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 0; vertical-align: middle; background-image: url("");" /></font></div></div><figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description" style="line-height: 1.0625rem; max-width: 100%; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caption-text">Angelika Hilbeck, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in a lab at the North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The agrochemical industry has long challenged her research, and she has been outspoken in fighting back.</span> <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder" style="line-height: 1rem; display: inline-block;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); overflow: hidden;">Credit</span>Joao Silva/The New York Times</span></font></figcaption></figure><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="258" data-total-count="15668" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But a review of Dr. Simpkins’s published work shows that he wrote favorable atrazine studies with Syngenta scientists <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24831581" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">in 2014</a> and 2015, and listed his university affiliation. Mr. Bolt said Dr. Simpkins only “served as an expert adviser” in the studies.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="284" data-total-count="15952" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2014, Syngenta made a $30,000 donation to the university’s foundation. Mr. Bolt said that the donation was made “in general support of the research activities of Dr. James W. Simpkins.” None of the money, Mr. Bolt said, was “used to support research related to Syngenta.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="277" data-total-count="16229" id="story-continues-36" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Dr. Simpkins’s collaborations with Dr. Breckenridge appear to be expansive.</b> In an email to Dr. Simpkins last year, Dr. Breckenridge sent him a study on the Mediterranean Diet and suggested that they use a multilevel marketing company to help them sell a product of their own.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="133" data-total-count="16362" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If we could come up with a better Snake Oil,” he wrote to Dr. Simpkins, “we would have access to a massive marketing force.”</font></p><h4 class="story-subheading story-content" data-para-count="21" data-total-count="16383" style="line-height: 1.8125rem; font-weight: 300; margin: 33px 0px 14px 75px; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Critic and a Target</font></h4><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="71" data-total-count="16454" id="story-continues-37" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some scientists labor outside the industry. It can be a difficult path.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="320" data-total-count="16774" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Angelika Hilbeck worked for Agroscope</b>, a Swiss agricultural research center, in the 1990s, when she began to examine genetically modified corn. The corn was engineered to kill insect larvae that fed on it, but Dr. Hilbeck found that it was also toxic to an insect called the lacewing, a useful bug that eats other pests.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="349" data-total-count="17123" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ciba-Geigy, a predecessor of Syngenta, had a confidentiality agreement with Agroscope, and insisted that she keep the research secret, she said. Confidentiality agreements are not unusual for Agroscope. In one such agreement obtained by The Times, the agency agreed to return or destroy corporate documents it received as part of a research project.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="200" data-total-count="17323" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Hilbeck said she refused to back down and eventually published her work. Her contract at Agroscope was not renewed. An Agroscope spokeswoman said the episode took place too long ago to comment on.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="428" data-total-count="17751" id="story-continues-38" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Hilbeck continued as a university researcher and was succeeded at Agroscope by Jörg Romeis, a scientist who had worked at Bayer and has since co-authored research with employees from Syngenta, DuPont and other companies. He has spent much of his career trying to debunk Dr. Hilbeck’s work. He followed her lacewing studies by co-authoring his own, finding that <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/genetically_modified_food/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about genetically modified food." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">genetically modified crops</a> were <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2311.2002.00436.x/full" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">not harmful</a> to the lacewing.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="210" data-total-count="17961" id="story-continues-39" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Next, after Dr. Hilbeck co-wrote <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/articles/2008/a-00634.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">a paper</a> outlining a model for assessing the unintended risks of such crops, Dr. Romeis was lead author of an <a href="http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n2/full/nbt1381.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">alternative approach</a> with a Syngenta scientist among his co-authors.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="319" data-total-count="18280" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, in 2009, Dr. Hilbeck was an author of a paper looking at <a href="http://stopogm.net/sites/stopogm.net/files/cry3Bbschmidt.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">risks to ladybug larvae</a> from modified crops. Dr. Romeis followed by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20740377" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">co-authoring a study</a> that found “no adverse effects” to ladybug larvae. In subsequent publications, he referred to work by Dr. Hilbeck and others as “<a href="http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n5/full/nbt.2578.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">bad science</a>” and a “<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25161661" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">myth</a>.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="85" data-total-count="18365" id="story-continues-40" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They were my little stalkers,” Dr. Hilbeck said. “Whatever I did, they did.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="252" data-total-count="18617" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, Dr. Romeis, who now leads Agroscope’s biosafety research group, said, “Her work does not affect our mission in any way,” adding that the idea of researching the effects of genetically modified crops was “not patented by her.”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="269" data-total-count="18886" id="story-continues-41" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Refereeing a scientific dispute is difficult. But Dr. Romeis and his collaborators do seem preoccupied with Dr. Hilbeck’s work, judging from a review of email traffic between Agroscope and the U.S.D.A. obtained by The Times after a Freedom of Information Act request.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="241" data-total-count="19127" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2014, as Dr. Romeis was developing a paper assailing Dr. Hilbeck’s work, one U.S.D.A. scientist, Steven E. Naranjo, joked in a message to Dr. Romeis: “Joerg, its generous of you to see that Hilbeck gets published once in a while :)”</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="242" data-total-count="19369" id="story-continues-42" data-node-uid="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem; max-width: none; width: 570px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Hilbeck is used to looking over her shoulder. “We shouldn’t be running into all kinds of obstacles and face all this comprehensive mobbing just doing what we’re supposed to do,” she said. “It’s totally corrupted this field.”</font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div>