“Transparency” should not equal a license to harass scientists

[HuckleB]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/01/11/transparency-should-not-mean-a-license-to-harass-scientists/

"While perusing the New York Times over the weekend, I was disturbed to see an article by Paul D. Thacker that basically advocated using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request e-mails from scientists in search of undisclosed industry ties. The article was entitled, disturbingly, Scientists, Give Up Your Emails. Thacker, as you might recall, wrote a highly biased article with Charles Seife for PLoS One attacking scientists who work on and defend genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and foods made from them from pseudoscientific attacks by cranks like Vani Hari, better known as The Food Babe. It was an article that was ultimately retracted. Reviewing his articles, not just the retracted PLoS One article, but his most recent NYT article, I find it hard not to conclude that Thacker advocates the unfettered use of FOIA requests, even abusive ones, to go on fishing expeditions for undisclosed conflicts of interest (COIs), real or imagined. Basically, to Thacker, if scientists not engaged in any wrongdoing get hurt (like Folta), that’s just tough doodie. This became clear to me when I saw a Twitter exchange involving Thacker about his article (more on that later).

A bit of background is in order regarding why I care about this. A couple of months ago, I wrote about what I called a sad day for science advocacy. It was such a sad day because a staunch advocate for the science of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) against the pseudoscience and fear mongering that GMO opponents use, publicly announced that he was withdrawing from public advocacy. This public advocate was Kevin Folta, a food and agricultural science professor at the University of Florida. Indeed, it’s not for nothing that I describe anti-GMO activists as using the same fallacious arguments as the antivaccine movement. For his efforts, Folta had endured incredible harassment at the hands of anti-GMO activists, who labeled him a Monsanto shill and did their very best to intimidate him into silence.

The harassment reached its climax last year when US Right to Know (USRTK)—a nonprofit that sells itself as “dedicated” to exposing “the failures of the corporate food system“—hit Folta with a frivolous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that was clearly meant as a fishing expedition and a means of punishing Folta. What was less reported was that USRTK is a lobbying arm of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), which funded it to the tune of $194,500 thus far. The OCA appears to be USRTK’s only major donor. So basically, an industry that stands to benefit by demonizing GMOs used FOIA to harass scientists.

...

One notes that the scientists had a truly difficult choice when confronted with such an FOIA: Submit all of their emails and allow lawyers to sift through them independently, or spend hours doing it themselves alongside legal counsel. Of course, that’s the point. That’s why groups like USRTK make such FOIA. It’s a feature, not a bug, of such requests. If the cranks find something they can use to smear the target, so much the better, but even if they don’t they will have caused their target major headaches and have wasted many hours of their time, hours when they can’t be doing research or public science advocacy. As Steve Novella noted, it’s a win-win strategy for groups like USRTK. Even better, if the scientists push back or complain about an invasion of privacy, those complaints and any resistance to providing the e-mails can be spun as “evidence” of a coverup, with help from even crankier cranks like Mike Adams.

..."


The lack of ethics among the anti-science crowd is simply astounding, and yet that crowd gets a pass at DU almost all the time.

[Orrex]

1. Whenever I see one of those clowns beating the FOIA drum, I answer as follows:

Under the FOIA I demand that you post your real name, address, birthdate and social security number.

They typically either refuse to answer at all, or else they complain that the FOIA applies only to public agencies.

"Exactly," I note. "So why should that scientist/company be required to give you its protected information?"