scientists for hire reverse findings of cancer study

>>From YubaNet.com

Sci/Tech
Chrome-Plated Fraud: How PG&E's Scientists-for-Hire Reversed Findings
of a Cancer Study
Author: Environmental Working Group
Published on Dec 24, 2005, 08:58

A consulting firm hired by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) to fight
the "Erin Brockovich" lawsuit distorted data from a Chinese study to
plant an article in a scientific journal reversing the study's original
conclusion that linked an industrial chemical to cancer, according to
documents obtained by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the San Francisco-based
consultants, ChemRisk, "conceived, drafted, edited and submitted to
medical journals" a "clarification" of the Chinese study, according to
documents filed in another chromium lawsuit against PG&E. They did so
despite a letter of objection from the Chinese scientist who led the
original study, calling their reversal of his findings an
"inappropriate inference."

Through the state Public Records Act, EWG has obtained many of the
documents cited by the Journal. They are available at
http://www.ewg.org .

In the Brockovich case, residents of Hinkley, Calif., sued PG&E for
dumping chromium-6 in their drinking water. In 1997, PG&E paid $333
million to settle the case, but another lawsuit against the company
over chromium pollution is set for trial next month.

The fraudulent article has influenced chromium regulations by state and
federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
ChemRisk, perpetrator of the deception, continues to work for corporate
and government clients including the Department of Energy and the
Centers for Disease Control.

The article was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational
and Environmental Medicine. EWG has written the journal's editors
urging them to set the record straight and bar the scientists who were
involved from its pages.

"The scientific community must be notified that a paper circulating in
the published literature is fraudulent, the paper must be retracted,
and those responsible for the incident must be appropriately
disciplined," EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles wrote to the
journal.

EWG has also written the Centers for Disease Control, which recently
renewed ChemRisk's multi-million dollar contract for a key project at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, urging the agency to take prompt
action against the company.

"ChemRisk's current contract must be cancelled and the firm barred from
seeking future contracts from the CDC or other government agencies,"
wrote Wiles.

The documents obtained by EWG show that ChemRisk employees - with the
knowledge of PG&E's attorneys - hired one of the original study's
authors as a "consultant," and conducted a new analysis of his data
that deliberately ignored evidence of an association between stomach
cancer and chromium-6 in drinking water. They then wrote and submitted
the article for publication without disclosing that they worked for
ChemRisk or that PG&E had paid for the new "study." Nowhere in the
published article are the names of the ChemRisk employees who worked on
it, or any indication that it was part of PG&E's legal defense
strategy.

The founder and president of ChemRisk is Dennis Paustenbach, who has
made a career of consulting for big polluters including PG&E,
ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical. In 2002, his appointment to a federal
committee on the health effects of chemicals was blasted by independent
scientists as part of a Bush Administration pattern of packing
environmental panels with industry-friendly experts.

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