Jennifer Sass's Blog
Supreme Court says No to Exxon-Science
July 2, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in EXXON SHIPPING CO. ET AL. v. BAKER ET AL., regarding Exxon's 1989 Valdez oil spill off coastal Alaska, which spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the surrounding environment. The tanker's captain still had an elevated blood alcohol level 11 hours after the spill, and had left the tanker in the hands of unlicensed subordinates at the time of the disaster.
Although the court awarded the injured parties much less in punitive damages than they had sought, the justices buried something very interesting in Footnote 17 of their decision.
In the footnote, part of Justice Souter’s majority opinion, the Court offered a short commentary, "The Court is aware of a body of literature running parallel to anecdotal reports, examining the predictability of punitive awards by conducting numerous 'mock juries' where different 'jurors' are confronted with the same hypothetical case...Because this research was funded in part by Exxon, we decline to rely on it."
In its footnote, the majority seems to recognize that industry-funded science is likely to be biased, and should be viewed with reasonable skepticism, if not rejected outright for consideration in judging a matter for which the funding industry has a financial or legal interest.
The Court’s thinking on this matter deserves consideration from the editors of scientific and policy journals, as well as federal and state regulators.
Misrepresentation or bias has been documented for industry-supported research on many hazardous industrial chemicals, including the low-dose effects of the plasticizer bisphenol A, tobacco-supported research on the health hazards of secondhand tobacco smoke, butadiene carcinogenicity, vinyl chloride carcinogenicity, perchlorate toxicity, and atrazine toxicity.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the premiere chemical evaluation program of the World Health Organization, observed that, “a difficulty arises when an expert with relevant knowledge and experience has a real or apparent conflict of interest. This issue has become more visible in recent years, as commercial interests sponsor many epidemiological and experimental studies and some investigators develop a history of receiving research support from interested parties.”
What is the solution? At a minimum, scientific journals must enforce rigorous policies for public disclosure of conflicts, both financial and personal, for authors, peer reviewers, news writers, and even editors. The details of a best practices policy may vary by journal, but the critical elements must include disclosure of conflicts to editors and to the public. The Court in this example could not have made a determination had the sponsorship of the studies not been disclosed.
NRDC will be hosting a workshop next week (July 12) of scientific journal editors, journal staff, scientists, and academics to develop a multi-stakeholder consensus on the critical elements of a best practices disclosure policy, with the hope that journals will adopt these elements without delay.
Journals and the public should not reject information or data based on its source. Instead, the public interest is best served by scientific journals that enforce a rigorous policy of public disclosure. Editors should take all means necessary to protect the journal's objectivity, integrity, independence, and competence as its most valuable assets.
(bookmark or email this entry)
Comments are closed for this post.
- Jennifer Sass
- Senior Scientist
- Washington, D.C.
- I grew up in the Canadian prairies where I learned to love open spaces, wild...
- more→
Comments
Alice Freund — Jul 4 2008 05:51 PM
It would be interesting to know what the Exxon funded study found in regard to the recommended punitive reward and how it compares to what the court ruled.
bob krieger — Jul 5 2008 09:59 AM
In the footnote, part of Justice Souter’s majority opinion, the Court offered a short commentary, "The Court is aware of a body of literature running parallel to anecdotal reports, examining the predictability of punitive awards by conducting numerous 'mock juries' where different 'jurors' are confronted with the same hypothetical case...Because this research was funded in part by Exxon, we decline to rely on it."
"In its footnote, the majority seems to recognize that industry-funded science is likely to be biased, and should be viewed with reasonable skepticism,..."
Just what was the literature that Souter referred to? Seems unlikely that it is "science," since funding alone would not be the basis for rejecting data (if there were any in the Exxon materials).
The report seems incomplete, what was it about the Exxon materials that Souter rejected as biased?
Jen Sass — Jul 7 2008 02:06 PM
Thank you both for the comments, Alice and Bob. Alice, I am also curious as to what the Exxon analysis found. And, Bob, you are correct, of course, that my blog did not provide an analysis of the legal comment (though I did provide a link directly to the comment for readers), and unfortunately I wont be providing this. I hope that a legal expert would do this, but I would be speaking outside of my field.
kappy paulson — Jul 7 2008 02:12 PM
Interesting that AAAS Science Journal has an editorial and letter to editor re peer veview. See Reviewing Peer Review, Bruce Alberts, Brooks Hanson, and Katrina L. Kelner http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/321/5885/15/ AND Painful Publishing http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5885/36a