Job Description Confusion

Some people in academia think their job is to do unbiased investigation of questions of significance to us all. Obviously they haven't been given the Company memo yet.

Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.

“No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions,” the scientists wrote in a statement submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. is seeking public comments for scientific meetings it will hold next week on biotech crops.

The researchers, 26 corn-insect specialists, withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies. But several of them agreed in interviews to have their names used.

The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

So while university scientists can freely buy pesticides or conventional seeds for their research, they cannot do that with genetically engineered seeds. Instead, they must seek permission from the seed companies. And sometimes that permission is denied or the company insists on reviewing any findings before they can be published, they say...

Dr. Shields of Cornell said financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies.

“People are afraid of being blacklisted,” he said. “If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest corn varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job.”

This makes as much sense as having the tobacco companies fund the research on lung cancer, which is exactly what happened until the field of pulmonary biology started barring people who had such funding from their national meetings and journals.

In the regulatory environment that's evolved over the last 10 years such an action would be considered the moral equivalent of supporting terrorism since it hinders the Holy Free Market.

Until that worship of Supply Side Jesus stops, Monsanto will own agriresearch, just like Pfizer owns the mental health field.