Prof. Jonathan Jones has reacted with apparent bemusement to the row over his failure to make clear his links to the biotech industry when promoting GM. He writes, "with the 20:20 vision of hindsight it would have been better to present my affiliation [to Mendel/Monsanto]. This didnt occur to me..."
But this is not the first time this issue has arisen. A year ago the pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science published a controversial guide to GM which noted its authors' public affiliations, such as their positions in universities or research institutes primarily funded from the public purse, while omitting any mention of their links to the GM industry.
The failure to declare industry affiliations drew strong criticism, as can be seen from the Times Higher Education article below. For instance:
"Guy Cook, a professor at The Open University who conducted two research council-funded studies into the language and arguments of the GM debate, agreed that the contributors' interests should have been declared.
'If not, they deal a severe blow to their own cause, the authority of science, which rests upon rationality, objectivity, evidence and disinterest,' he said. 'The problem with GM advocacy is that it has compromised these principles, and in so doing has dangerously undermined public trust in scientists.'"
The introduction to the GM guide was written by none other than Jonathan Jones, together with Ellen Raphael of Sense About Science, who helped him edit the guide.
Jones is described in the guide simply as, "Head of Laboratory at The Sainsbury Laboratory and a member of the Royal Society working group on food security." Because Jones' founding of a company that had Monsanto as its principal collaborator was not widely known at the time, none of the criticism in the Times Higher Education article focused on him.
But he could hardly have been unaware of the controversy. It featured not only in the Times Higher Education piece, but in much online comment, plus an article in Private Eye. And one of the focuses of the criticism was the John Innes Centre where Jonathan Jones is based.
One might have thought the outraged reaction to the guide's lack of frankness would have left Prof. Jones in little doubt as to how a failure to declare industry affiliations might be seen.
Apparently not.
---
---
Charity guide criticised for not declaring GM interests
Zoe Corbyn
Times Higher Education, 19 February 2009
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405427
*Sense About Science pamphlet failed to list contributors' links with industry
A charity has come under fire for failing to declare all industry affiliations of the experts it enlisted to compile a booklet explaining genetic modification to the public.
The pamphlet was produced by Sense About Science (SAS), a charity that claims to promote scientific reasoning in public discussions.
According to anti-genetic modification campaigners and academics, it failed to mention links between some of the experts who wrote the booklet and GM firms.
For example, the guide's biography of Vivian Moses, emeritus professor of microbiology at Queen Mary, University of London, and visiting professor of biotechnology at King's College London, does not mention that he is also chairman of CropGen, a GM lobby group that receives funding from the biotechnology industry.
It says only that he has been "a full-time researcher in biochemistry and microbiology" and is now "primarily concerned with communicating science to the public".
Critics also argued that the guide should have noted that the John Innes Centre, where eight of its 28 contributors are based, received funding from biotechnology companies.
Michael Antoniou, a geneticist at King's College London, described the omissions as "outrageous".
He said: "GM is a sensitive issue. People have been extremely suspicious because of its industrial connections. So it is imperative that they declare these in this context, as in a journal publication."
Dr Antoniou, who himself provides technical advice to anti-GM campaign group GM Watch, speculated that SAS had not disclosed Professor Moses' directorship because it was afraid of arousing public suspicion.
Guy Cook, a professor at The Open University who conducted two research council-funded studies into the language and arguments of the GM debate, agreed that the contributors' interests should have been declared.
"If not, they deal a severe blow to their own cause, the authority of science, which rests upon rationality, objectivity, evidence and disinterest," he said. "The problem with GM advocacy is that it has compromised these principles, and in so doing has dangerously undermined public trust in scientists."
David Miller, professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde, who is involved in running the website Spinwatch.org.uk, likened the pamphlet to "a PR exercise".
In a statement to Times Higher Education, Professor Moses said his CropGen role was not a secret but should have been spelt out.
"Had I been asked by SAS how I should be described (I wasn't asked and presumed it knew as I have been one of its advisers for years), I would have suggested: visiting professor of biotechnology, King's College London, and chairman of CropGen."
A spokesperson for the John Innes Centre stressed that most of its funding was public.
"We do not regard our affiliations to industry as a contentious issue. Our interests are not 'vested' and our scientists are extremely careful to avoid conflicts of interest."
Tracey Brown, managing director of SAS, said the booklet's emphasis was on contributors' scientific background.
"They were not seeking to advance any commercial application of GM technology, but to set research in the context of other plant-breeding research and history," she said.