ngin - Norfolk Genetic Information Network
 

                                    Daily Telegraph
                                    Monday 14 February 2000
            Scientists 'asked to fix results for backer'
                                    By Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent
 

                                    News - Institute of Professionals, Managers and Specialists
 

                                   ONE in three scientists working for Government quangos or newly privatised laboratories says he
                                   has been asked to adjust his conclusions to suit his sponsor.

                                   Contracting out and the commercialisation of scientific research are threatening standards of
                                   impartiality, scientists claim. The survey was conducted by the union representing research
                                   scientists, which is campaigning against further privatisation of public laboratories.

                                   The Institute of Professionals, Managers and Specialists says that public safety could be harmed by
                                   the Government's plans to bring private funding into the National Air Traffic Services and the
                                   Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Privatisations over the last few years have included the
                                   Radio Chemical Centre, now Nycomed Amersham Laboratories, and the Atomic Energy
                                   Authority, which trades as AEA Technology.

                                   Charles Harvey, the institute's spokesman, said an increasing number of scientists had privately
                                   raised concerns with the union so it had decided to include a question about the influence of
                                   sponsors in a survey about pay and conditions. Thirty per cent of the 500 respondents said they
                                   had been asked to tailor their research conclusions or resulting advice.

                                   The figure included 17 per cent who had been asked to change their conclusions to suit the
                                   customer's preferred outcome, 10 per cent who said they had been asked to do so to obtain further
                                   contracts and three per cent who claimed they had been asked to make changes to discourage
                                   publication.

                                   "Some were working for quangos and some for fully privatised laboratories," said Mr Harvey.
                                   "The piper is calling the tune and it raises worrying issues. We have seen the BSE crisis, food
                                   scares and the the GMO debacle and the public is losing confidence in Government as an
                                   independent, fair-minded arbiter."

                                   Scientists should be given the right to publish their research instead of having to get permission
                                   from the sponsors, he said. Concern over pressure brought to bear on medical researchers has
                                   prompted the British Medical Journal to insist that authors declare their source of funding and
                                   whether they have any "competing interests".

                                   They must fill in a form declaring, for example, whether they have been paid to lecture or attend
                                   symposiums by companies connected with their work, or hold shares in them. Richard Smith,
                                   editor of the journal, said the policy had been formally introduced because of evidence that the
                                   authors of reviews of research evidence were influenced by those who commissioned them to do
                                   the work.

                                   Research into the funding of 10 papers on the alleged blood clotting risk of the third generation
                                   contraceptive pills found those funded by the pharmaceutical industry had discovered no risk,
                                   whereas those with other sources of funding claimed there was, he said.

                                   Recent American research had also discovered links between studies which found passive smoking
                                   was not dangerous and the tobacco industry. "These competing interests are very important," said
                                   Dr Smith. "It has quite a profound influence on the conclusions and we deceive ourselves if we
                                   think science is wholly impartial."

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