Wow! What a powerful ( and scary) piece of jornalistic
detective work. I think the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club
should ask (is demand too strong a word?) state and federal
legislators in Iowa, as well as the Governor's office to
investigate this issue fully. I will put the issue on the
agenda for the Leopold Group Excom Meeting Tue. Dec. 3rd,
7:30PM 606 S.2nd in Fairfield.  As usual all Sierra Club
members are invited to attend.

Jim Fleming
Chair, Leopold Group
641-693-9000

--- Bosold <[log in to unmask]> wrote:> Everyone,
>
> Today's Des Moines Register carried the following front
> page story (my thanks to Phil Scott and other local
> friends who alerted me to this).  The paper itself
> carried a number of case studies and sidebar stories
> about specific examples of scientists who had been
> prevented by government or agribusiness interests from
> publishing or publicizing their work.
>
> Patrick Bosold
>
> http://www.dmregister.com
>
> Ag scientists feel the heat
> University and government scientists studying health
> threats associated with agricultural pollution say they
> are harassed by farmers and trade groups and silenced by
> superiors afraid to offend the powerful industry.
>
>
http://desmoinesregister.com/business/stories/c4789013/19874144.html
>
> Ag scientists feel the heat
> By PERRY BEEMAN
> Register Staff Writer
> 12/01/2002
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ames, Ia. - University and government scientists studying
> health threats associated with agricultural pollution say
> they are harassed by farmers and trade groups and
> silenced by superiors afraid to offend the powerful
> industry.
>
> The heat comes from individual farmers, commodity groups
> and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which finances
> and controls much of the research.
>
> And the pressure is growing, some scientists say.
>
> "It's rampant," said JoAnn Burkholder, an acclaimed
> aquatic botanist trained at Iowa State University who
> received death threats after warning North Carolina
> parents not to let their children wade in a
> manure-polluted stream.
>
> Scientists in Iowa and other states say that the USDA
> kills controversial research by forcing it through an
> extended approval process. The agency also keeps
> researchers from publicizing sensitive findings in
> scientific journals and at public meetings and cooperates
> with industry groups to suppress research results that
> don't meet the groups' satisfaction, they charge.
>
> Such pressure tactics have been reported in the tobacco,
> pharmaceutical and oil industries. But they are every bit
> as intense, if not more so, in the agricultural arena:
>
> * Bosses told James Zahn, a former federal swine
> researcher in Ames, that he couldn't publish his findings
> that air emissions from hog confinements contained
> potentially health-threatening antibiotic-resistant
> bacteria. They wouldn't let him speak to citizens groups
> about the study after pork producers questioned the
> appearances. The work, they said, didn't fit the lab's
> mission.
>
> * Burkholder, the aquatic botany professor at North
> Carolina State University in Raleigh, drew a flood of
> demands for her dismissal in 1997 after she publicized
> the human-health dangers of a stream polluted so severely
> by hog manure that the number of bacteria was 15,000
> times higher than the state limit. Burkholder received
> anonymous death threats, including one against her dog,
> Peanut.
>
> * Phillip Baumel, a longtime Iowa State University
> economist, said he faced retribution from the Iowa Corn
> Growers Association in 2000 after his study questioned
> the benefit of expanding the lock-and-dam system along
> the upper Mississippi River. Corn farmers said the work
> would speed shipments and was worth the money. The corn
> growers objected to the study and its tardiness, and they
> declined to pay for it.
>
> "None of it surprises me," said Burkholder, who received
> a bachelor's degree in zoology from ISU. Her lab tied
> sewage and manure pollution to a toxic organism,
> pfiesteria piscicida, that can kill fish and sicken
> humans.
>
> "I have seen some very sad practices in this country,"
> Burkholder said. "Industry has a stranglehold on
> environmental issues to the point that this muzzling goes
> on all the time."
>
> Sandy Miller Hays, spokeswoman for the USDA's
> Agricultural Research Service, said the government works
> closely with farm groups to do the research they need,
> but it doesn't let them skew or suppress results. "We do
> the research we feel needs done, we put the findings out
> there, and we let the chips fall where they may," she
> said.
>
> Farm organizations, including the Iowa Pork Producers
> Association and the National Pork Board, say they have no
> intention of squelching researchers' work, even when the
> groups have paid part of the tab. Association President
> Tim Bierman, a Larrabee hog farmer, said his group wants
> to make sure the work is presented fairly and based on
> facts, not on an anti-industry bias.
>
> "As long as the research is done with sound science and
> done correctly, we're going to stand by it," Bierman
> said.
>
> Scientists, who typically initiate the studies, say the
> pressure is stopping important work meant to protect the
> taxpayers, who foot most of the bill. Even when the work
> gets done, they worry about efforts to manipulate or
> muffle the results. For some, the bigger fear is that
> scientists will censor themselves to avoid angering the
> boss or losing a grant.
>
> On one front, the battle is for academic freedom,
> researchers say, but the implications reach much further:
> Some of the scientists are studying pollution believed to
> have the potential to sicken or kill people.
>
> Some say the close relationship between the U.S.
> Department of Agriculture and industry groups is to
> blame.
>
> "The USDA has a long-term relationship with pork
> producers," said Zahn, who left his job at the USDA's
> Agricultural Research Service lab at ISU in May to join
> an out-of-state pharmaceutical firm. The service is one
> of the Agriculture Department's largest research
> divisions, with about 2,000 scientists, and nearly half
> of them are involved in farm pollution issues in one way
> or another, said Hays, the ARS spokeswoman.
>
> Certainly, researchers studying pollution from farms
> don't face industry pressure universally. But no one
> tracks how often scientists who are paid by taxpayers are
> silenced or intimidated. Those brave enough to speak out
> usually have secure jobs at universities or, like Zahn,
> leave the public arena.
>
> Zahn said his superiors wouldn't let him submit for
> publication perhaps one of his most important findings -
> that the air emitted by hog confinements contained
> potentially health-threatening antibiotic-resistant
> bacteria - and several times refused invitations for him
> to speak about his findings.
>
> Zahn also was uncomfortable that an "advisory panel" of
> hog farmers, assembled by the USDA, watched over the
> lab's work. In fact, national pork groups have at times
> had offices in the same government buildings as the USDA
> labs.
>
> "No other government agency ever had this hand-holding
> relationship with a livestock group," Zahn said after he
> quit the USDA job.
>
> Hays said the nature of her agency - researching ways to
> improve agriculture - requires cooperation with farm
> groups. "Obviously, we pay attention" when the pork
> industry lays out an area that needs research, Hays said.
> But the work is objective and independent, she added.
>
> Hays said advisory groups are common at many USDA labs.
> The commodity groups help frame research needed to
> protect the environment and to make farming more
> efficient. Kendall Thu, a former University of Iowa
> researcher now at Northern Illinois University, has
> co-written a book on the shift to large-scale livestock
> confinement operations and has studied the health of farm
> neighbors in Iowa and Illinois. He said Zahn's
> predicament is common.
>
> "His story is deeply disturbing and fits a pattern of
> industry intimidation, the muzzling of freedom of speech
> and erosion of academic freedom," Thu said.
>
> Economist Neil Harl at ISU said farmers are flexing their
> political muscle like never before in the arena of
> scientific research.
>
> "I see more pressure from external sources than I have
> seen in my 38 years at this school," he said.
>
>
> "They pulled the rug out"
>
> Microbiologist James Zahn was eager to get the word out
> about his groundbreaking work on antibiotic-resistant
> bacteria that grow in hog confinements. The germs can
> escape into surrounding water and air.
>
> His research on air emissions showed that they could
> include
=== message truncated ===


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