Poison Spring by E. G. Vallianatos

Author:E. G. Vallianatos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

The IBT scandal merely revealed what my EPA colleague David Smithson would call “garbage science.” IBT was not a unique case of scientific fraud––it was emblematic of a dark and deviant scientific culture, a “brave new science” with deep roots throughout agribusiness, the chemical industry, universities, and the government. IBT highlighted why labs are essential to the protection of human health: they are the means by which we evaluate the toxins ending up in the food we eat. So lab integrity is essential, which makes the case of IBT and IBT-like behavior in the chemical industry so abhorrent.

And what about the true science that never got done? In the IBT fraud, nearly half of the animal studies testing the potential mutagenic effect of pesticides were tampered with. The EPA and FDA reviewers rightly concluded that those studies were invalid. But the real significance of this classification is that the makers of the pesticides discovered that their pesticides caused gene damage, so they falsified the studies.21

What might we have learned had these studies been conducted (and reported) properly? Hard to say. But between 1976 and 1989, EPA banned or restricted the use of thirty-nine pesticide active ingredients.22 Two criteria for those actions had to do with the possible effects of the pesticides on animal genetics. Sixteen of these very popular agricultural sprays that were either canceled or restricted were tested for mutagenic or teratogenic (deforming) effects, or were shown to have mutagenic or teratogenic effects on experimental animals. Both of these effects are related to genetic damage that, if real, could lead to cancer or other diseases.

Similarly, Parkinson’s disease, a very common degenerative disease of the central nervous system in the United States, has some of its origins in genes affected and poisoned by toxic chemicals. Recent studies show that pesticides, including DDT and DDT-like chemicals, increase the risk for Parkinson’s disease as well as causing Parkinson’s disease. Pesticides damage the neurons, which produce the neurotransmitter dopamine essential for good health.23

We don’t know what, if any, of this research might have been carried out had IBT been a legitimate lab. What we do know is that for more than twenty-five years, IBT and labs like it served as the chemical and pharmaceutical industries’ corrupt enablers, allowing them to sell hazardous substances to the American people. Cigarette companies hid the results of their testing from the federal government. They developed a sophisticated process of deception, presenting reassuring conclusions to the government about their cigarettes even though their own research told a far darker story.

At IBT, Joseph Calandra was determined to do what the cigarette companies did—and much more. As it had in the cigarette industry, scientific dishonesty could protect his industry’s profits. Calandra knew the pesticide and pharmaceutical industries were no less determined to protect their empire than were the executives of cigarette companies. So this former professor and chairman of the biochemistry department of Northwestern University, working closely with executives of chemical companies, developed nearly a perfect scheme to provide the

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