Ethics Road Full of Sinkholes, Warn Two UCSF Legends

by Jeff Miller Famed UCSF biochemist Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, and legendary occupational health expert Joe LaDou, MD, advised graduate students to be wary of conflicts of interest and political and industry influence as they charge ahead with their careers. Their remarks came during presentations at the Graduate Students' Association's recent 21st Annual Career and Research Days at Mission Bay. Blackburn, whose groundbreaking research into cellular events at the tips of chromosomes has won her many prestigious awards - and a seat on President Bush's Council on Bioethics in 2002 - spoke of her conscious decision to join the group, despite its obvious political agenda. "I wanted to help get the science right," she said. Her persistence on that point won her both admirers and critics. Less than two years after her appointment to the panel, her persistence also ensured her dismissal. But she was not silenced. "I was heartened by the private and public reaction to my disinvitation," said Blackburn, who received many supportive emails from around the world. "People seemed to understand that you should not be making science policy that didn't take evidence into account." Juries and Junk Science LaDou, who has garnered an international reputation as a workers' health advocate, spoke of evidence, as well, particularly the health records of workers in the semiconductor industry. The medical histories of such workers were ruled inadmissible in a high-profile liability lawsuit against IBM in 2003. As LaDou explained, when articles about these records and their impact on workers' health were later to be published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, the publisher balked under industry pressure. "Anything that disagrees with the industry position is always dismissed as junk science," LaDou said. Now, three years later, the articles - which the original authors withdrew in protest - might finally appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A self-described cynic, LaDou attributed the shift in attitude to Internet authoring that skirts censorship, smells out distortion and publicizes a different truth to the world. Not that he minimized the countervailing power of industry largesse, which, he asserted, extends to purchasing expert testimony from university experts and stocking editorial boards and professional organizations with its allies. "Most doctors in occupational health now are industry stooges, as well," he decried. Career Choices Sticking to your ethical guns is not always easy, Blackburn admitted. She cited one example where she turned down $440,000 in industry money because the contract's restrictive fine print cut short what she called the "free flow of ideas across the benches. "I was fortunate. I had other sources of funding." Others are not so lucky, which is why, she argued, university conflict-of-interest rules must be strong enough - and the penalties tough enough - to outweigh the temptations. "A human being, knowing that a million dollars rides on a particular research result, is influenced by that," she acknowledged. LaDou echoed that sentiment, and issued a challenge of his own to the graduate students in the audience. "You're sitting in a university that's more industry than university right now. What choices are you going to make?" Some Environmental and Watchdog Organizational Web Sites compiled by LaDou EnvironmentalWorking Group [EWG] Center for Science in the Public Interest [CSPI] Defending Science Environmental Defense Government Accountability Project Integrity in Science [CSPI] Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety [IFCS/WHO] National Defense Scorecard National Pesticide Information Center National Resources Defense Council [NRDC] NRDC Nature's Voice Occupational Safety and Health, UAW OMB Watch: Pesticide Action Network [PAN] Physicians for Social Responsibility Politics & Science OPs Hot Spots Map Public Citizen Public Health Foundation Public Interest Research Group [PRIG] Rachel Carson Rachel Carson Council Science and Environmental Health Network Silent Spring Institute Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Union of Concerned Scientists [UCS] Washington Toxics Coalition World Wildlife Fund