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Fellow future scientists - what are your thoughts?
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I'm in my second year studying Biomed and at uni the staff have urged us to begin to consider our future paths. I want to become a medical research scientist. However, it's stories such as these which make me uncomfortable. You could spend years researching the effects of a drug for a multinational drug company and have it all rejected when the results are not "positive". This man was hounded for over 15 years by Syngenta, his family threatened (he was told "your wife is home alone now. You know what we could do to her?"), his every move tracked and a document recently released shows the lengths the chemical manufacturer went to discredit him. It's shocking, watch the video below it's worth it.
The New Yorker article detailing the court documents:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all
"We speak with a University of California scientist Tyrone Hayes, who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical's manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study their product, Atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect -- that Atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans -- it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class-action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes' reputation and prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union."
... All over a pesticide.
The New Yorker article detailing the court documents:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all
"We speak with a University of California scientist Tyrone Hayes, who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical's manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study their product, Atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect -- that Atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans -- it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class-action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes' reputation and prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union."
... All over a pesticide.
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I think that kind of discrediting/malicious competition is more prevalent in other sectors such as the financial sector. Not that that's reassuring.
That guy is a bit of a hero though, standing up for the truth like that. Its people like that who will actually make a difference to the world.
That guy is a bit of a hero though, standing up for the truth like that. Its people like that who will actually make a difference to the world.
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