An Ethical Science

The Code

The Society of Toxicology (SOT) has a Code of Ethics.  Maybe you wouldn’t think that is unusual, but most scientific organizations don’t.  The American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics doesn’t, nor do the American Physical Society or the American Chemical Society.  That really isn’t odd; science is about knowledge, not ethics.   When SOT was founded in 1961, there was no code, nor was there when I joined in 1981.  The first lines of code, which were introduced in 1985, are as follows:

• Conduct their work with objectivity and themselves with integrity. Being honest and truthful in reporting and communicating their research.
• Hold as inviolate that credible science is fundamental to all toxicological research and is the basis for communicating results.
• Recognize a duty to communicate information concerning health, safety, and toxicity in a timely and responsible manner, with due regard for the significance and credibility of the available data.
• Give due consideration to the ethical, legal, social, and policy implications of their research and communications.

Can’t argue with the first two.  One might wonder why they needed to be said though; Industrial Bio-test may be the explanation.  The admonition against hiding data sounds OK too.  But the fourth one is troubling: Who is supposed to decide what “due consideration” is?  The toxicologist, or an agency manager who may be a Republican? And why did this come a few years after the Redbook was released? 

The next bullet, which was added in 2005 also begs for interpretation:

• Be a thoughtful advocate for human, animal, and environmental health.

What is that supposed to mean?  I guess chemical warfare is out of the question.  But we can still kill fungi, insects, and rodents, right?  Or at least some weeds, surely.  OK, I thought about it – did I pass?  No, that’s not it.  Given the fact that this came out at the same time as the 2005 EPA Risk Assessment guidelines, I think this bullet is really about enforced precaution:  Good SOT members are precautionary, while bad ones like me aren’t.  Why burden ourselves with biological complexity when you can always throw on another uncertainty factor?  Oh well, there goes bullet #1, and the Redbook paradigm.

Vested Interests

But, the real howler is bullet #6 [which I suppose also was introduced in 2005]:

• Abstain from professional judgments influenced by undisclosed conflict of interest, disclose any material conflicts of interest, and avoid situations that imply a conflict of interest.

All research is paid for by somebody.  In Environmental Toxicology, most of it is paid for by the government.  Even if it isn’t, there is usually a certain amount of salesmanship in getting the grant funded; the issue has to be sound important.  On this topic, a journalist named Jon Franklin (1997) gave a lecture on this topic at a 1996 Society of Toxicology meeting with the following excerpts:

Back in the early Seventies, Richard Nixon promised to cure cancer in ten years. I couldn't find a single cancer scientist who thought that likely, but neither could I get anyone to say so on the record. If Nixon believed we could cure cancer by throwing money at research, then scientists were not going to tell the nation otherwise. A gold mine is a gold mine is a gold mine.

In the years since, it has become standard for media-savvy scientists to team up with reporters to scare the public into coughing up research money. 

The truth is that while not all scientists and reporters pander to the hysteria, most enable it with their silence. And the truth is that this dishonesty will destroy your credibility in the same way that corruption in the church destroyed the power of Medieval Catholicism.

As more and more of us, as individuals, draw sustenance from propositions that we know to be false, if only in their disproportion, we devalue the respect for truth that is the foundation of our civilization. Finally it comes down--it has come down--to a corruption of the faith that once underlay the modern age.

The only thing unfair about all that is that scientists are also human; exaggeration of self-worth is what people with egos do, and yes, academic scientists are trying to make a living too.  That said, it is well worth pointing out that, if anything, academic researchers are more vested in their issues than someone who takes their money from a chemical company.  So, asking industry funded researchers to disclose their interests is quite disingenuous; a far better option is to assume everyone is potentially biased.  

Fake data aside, trust is really is not that important to the conduct of science; the truth of a scientific argument does not depend on who bears the message.  For example, consider the following line of inductive reasoning:

Because it has risen every day for as long as anyone can remember, the sun will probably rise tomorrow.

It is true that you are more likely to hear that sort of argument from a solar panel salesman.  But it is no more convincing coming from a sun expert, nor is it less convincing if it comes from a random sentence generator.

And yes, SOT bears a great similarity to the Medieval Catholic church.  The pronouncements of Environmental Toxicology, at least insofar as they are relevant to public health, are largely theoretical and unlikely to be contradicted by empirical observation.  So, the only alternative to speculative theory is faith, and vice-versa; which brings us to the last line of code [which I believe was introduced in 2012]:

• Provide equal opportunity and equal consideration to all members without regard to sex, gender identity or expression, race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or religious belief, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or veteran status.

SOT sure sounds more like a political party or a religion than a scientific organization, doesn’t it? 

Reference

Franklin, J (1997).  Poisons of the Mind.  J. Anim. Sci. 75:68-74

Official Post Soundtrack

Gentle Giant (1974).  So Sincere.  In: The Power and the Glory, Track 2 (2014 remix with video especially recommended).

Post Note

Post Thesis #16.  79 to go. This is the first published thesis of the protest thread, but it won't be the first in sequence when I have them all lined up.  But, the annual SOT meeting is this week, and since I'm staying home, I feel like taking the guillotine out for a spin today.   

I may be wrong on some the dates of introduction; please correct me if you know better; I think the chronology is important.