Cox News Service, Jeff Nesmith
Published March 8, 2007
WASHINGTON ?- In a stinging criticism of agencies responsible for protecting Americans from dangerous drugs and chemicals, a senior National Institutes of Health scientist has charged that pervasive industry-funded research is used to delay and block government action.
James Huff, an associate director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said chemical manufacturers, drug companies and others have spent huge sums to compromise government agencies and even universities and scientific journals.
The strategy generates industry-friendly conclusions that are used to influence government decisions, Huff said in an article published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published quarterly in Burlington, N.C.
"Industry's wealth and limitless global reach now extends into all aspects of academia, government and industry-fronted non-governmental organizations," he said.
The result, he said, consists of "wrong-headed industry-posed deceits and fabrications" that distort government regulation of drugs and toxic chemicals in the environment and workplace.
Huff even criticized his own agency, which he said accepts industry money and often bows to pressure from industry representatives.
He said government scientific advisory panels are "often replete" with scientists and physicians who have clear conflicts of interest.
"This is especially damaging on panels convened to advise the Food and Drug Administration on new drug therapies or to evaluate the untoward effects of drugs, and those industry-laden panels of the Environmental Protection Agency," Huff said.
Huff, who did not respond to requests for an interview, is not the first to complain about the role industry is allowed to play in the scientific underpinnings of the regulations with which it must comply.
For several years, public interest organizations, academic groups and environmentalists have grown increasingly vocal in criticizing often obscure roles of industries in decisions affecting their own regulatory requirements.
A report issued two years ago by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said that EPA and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences had failed to properly evaluate conflicts of interest in its agreements with the American Chemistry Council, trade group of the chemical manufacturing industry.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit activist group, has issued several reports charging that government decisions on topics ranging from abortion and breast cancer to climate change have been improperly swayed by industry and White House pressure.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has for several weeks been locked in a dispute with the White House Council on Environmental Quality over access to records the committee's outspoken chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., says could link companies such as ExxonMobil to alleged White House interference in government research on climate change.
The Journal of the American Medical Association last year proposed steps to disclose ties of health researchers to companies that fund their work.
The Scientific Integrity Project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a 36-year-old consumer advocacy group, issues weekly reports identifying the role of chemical, pharmaceutical and tobacco companies in government decision-making, scientific publications and press reports.
Merrill Goozner, director of the project, said that since enactment of a raft of laws dealing with environmental protection and food and drug safety in the 1960s and 1970s, industry has invested in influencing scientific research.
"All the data about industry-funded science shows that the outcomes overwhelmingly favor the sponsors," Goozner said.
"This trend gathered speed in the 1990s and, I would argue, has triumphed in many ways under this administration," he added.
The American Chemistry Council did not respond to a request for comment.
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Huff's agency announced this week that it would review its ties to an industry-linked company, Sciences International, which is paid to help manage the agency's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
The consulting firm's private clients include manufacturers of bisphenol A, a common plastic ingredient that has been linked to prostate and breast cancer and reduced fertility, according to a report released by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit activist organization.
Under its government contract, the company also produced a lengthy report that was being used by the government human reproduction center in its evaluation of bisphenol A.
Following the environmental group's report on Science International's industry contacts and subsequent news articles, the agency said it would postpone a decision on bisphenol A for six weeks while it reviews the matter.
In his article, Huff called on scientists, physicians and other health and safety professionals to "more forcibly speak out about the wrongs being perpetuated by industry and industry apologists."
"We must do our immediate best to overcome negative public health trends and continue to fight prevalent and pervasive industry influence," he wrote. "Wrong-headed industry-posed deceits and fabrications must be counteracted with scientific truth regarding the real hazards of chemicals and industry practices."
Sandra A. Lovegrove, publisher of the quarterly journal, said it accepts no industry funding or advertising of any kind and subsists solely on revenue from subscriptions of $108 to $133 a year.
