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Secrecy—power for scientists, but risk for the public

Synopsis: Although the secret peer review process is considered essential by scientists, the secrecy of the process also blocks scientists from knowing the honesty of the peer review. The failures in peer reviewing to protect the public has become a matter of international concern. Not widely recognized is the fact that secrecy also prevents effective discussion within the scientific community of controversial subjects such as prions and pleiotropy in which powerful individuals or groups have financial or ego stakes. As a result, major new diseases and risks to the public have been, and are being, missed until many people die.
Scientists proudly proclaim it is the secret peer review process which keeps scientists honest. A National Academy of Sciences report describes it:
PURPOSES AND BENEFITS OF PEER REVIEW

Peer review is a widely used, time-honored practice in the scientific and engineering community for judging and potentially improving a scientific or technical plan, proposal, activity, program, or work product through documented critical evaluation by individuals or groups with relevant expertise who had no involvement in developing the object under review. Peer review seeks to assess and potentially to foster the improvement of scientific and technical methodology, evidence, criteria, calculations, extrapolations, inferences, interpretations, and documentation.

When scientific and technical information is used as part of the basis for a public-policy decision, peer review can substantially enhance not only the quality but also the credibility of the scientific or technical basis for the decision. After-the-fact criticisms of the science are more difficult to sustain if it can be shown to have been properly and independently peer reviewed.

This is the theory of peer review. The reason it is normally secret is to protect the peer reviewer from reprisal.

The practice is quite different. Peer reviewers may be lazy, they may be supporting their buddies, they may want to avoid receiving negative peer reviews of their work. If they are reviewing a research proposal, they may be stealing ideas or preventing a research competitor from advancing his work. They may have a financial stake in the product or process under review.

As the value of the products of research has increased, cases of conflict of interest have become more serious. The result has been several international conferences on peer review.

In fact, no one but the editor knows who the peer reviewers were, what their comments were, or whether the person who received the peer review even bothered to read it.

I am reporting the details of the Kwan and Bass papers I reviewed under my own name, as required by my USDA supervisors. Before publication they each were peer reviewed by 3 scientists for the USDA, 3 for the agricultural experiment station under which they were published, and 3 for the ASHS journal to which they were submitted before publication. I was apparently the only reviewer who found problem with either. My readers can judge for themselves the accuracy of my review.

However, enough time has elapsed that the public can evaluate the outcome of the effectiveness of the peer reviewing of the American Society for Horticultural Science.

Dr. Charles E. Hess was an officer and leader in ASHS at the time. Charlie used his leadership in the society to advance his professional credentials. He rose in the University of California at Davis to become Dean. From that honored position he was selected to Chair the NAS/NRC Committee which wrote the 1987 report which omitted mention of the CMS-SCLB epidemic, thus deleting this evidence of the risk of genetic manipulation from history, opening the door to the present wide use of GM (genetic engineering) technology which is creating world-wide fear and protest.

If you wish to discuss this history with Charlie, you can reach him here. (return)

Secrecy prevents scientists from openly discussing controversial subjects which place the public at risk

Secret peer reviewing is not only used as a basis for decision on publication of scientists' research work, it is used by many granting agencies to decides who receives research funding. Science is expensive. Obtaining funds for equipment and labor is essential if a scientist is to remain a scientist and feed his family. Because funding research grants is a secret process, scientists dare not question ideas popular in the scientific community.

The human genome project—Prion diseases

A prime example is the lack of public discussion by scientists who justify the human genome project, in which the public is paying to map the order of the nucleic acid components of the entire human genome. This has been sold to the public by authoritative statements that "this information will allow us to cure diseases." However, just as this project has reached its zenith, a supposedly new type of disease is terrorizing the public in Europe. This disease, a spongiform encephalopathy causes the brain to resemble a sponge. Called vCJD—variant Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease—or mad cow disease, it is transmitted from diseased cattle. It is caused by a type of protein called a prion. Similar diseases are known in sheep, mink, deer, elk and other animals. PRION DISEASES HAVE NO NUCLEIC ACID COMPONENT! They are not living according to the nucleic acid definition we now apply to life!

In fact, the transmissibility of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease was known in 1985 when CJD was accidentally transmitted between humans in the National Hormone and Pituitary Program. (return)

Pleiotropy

Equally concealed from the public because it is missing in scientific discussions of GM (genetic manipulation or genetic engineering) is the importance of pleiotropy. Pleiotropy is the genetic connectedness between traits and is a measure of how the genes for one trait also affect another trait. Scientists discuss genes as though each gene affects only one trait. However, a review of pleiotropy in a book published by the US National Academy of sciences states on page 226: "Because pleiotropy is considered to be universal (Wright, 1968), significant genetic correlations among traits are common."

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