Viewpoint

Sidestepping Criticisms

J.A. Grant-Mackie

There are various ways to tackle criticisms so as to avoid addressing their actual substance. Included are argumentum ad hominem, demolishing substitute criticism and ignoring the real one, and ridicule. This is part of the approach of Dr Caroline Horwath in her response [Raising calcium awareness, Nov] to my letter in the October issue commenting on her article of the previous number [Sept].

My letter made two explicit criticisms of her article on the problem of overcoming the generally low calcium intake of women in New Zealand, research she had acknowledged as being funded by the NZ Dairy Board:

• that no source of calcium other than dairy products was being considered
• that the report equated "improved" uptake of milk products with "increased" uptake without providing justification

Horwath went some of the way to dealing with the first with her background information on calcium needs and intake levels (which could have had a place in her September report), but she still fails to explain why no attention is given to the issue of calcium intake for those women who have problems with cows' milk. She has not dispelled the impression able to be taken from her first report that it is because this is not of interest to Dairy Board funders. Ridicule (fish bones and "large servings of broccoli" are the first in her very short list of alternative calcium sources) does not address the issue very satisfactorily.

The title Horwath uses in her later article is "Raising calcium awareness", and she underscores the need very well. But her first article was not about raising awareness, it simply emphasised raising intake of milk products, the basis for my second criticism.

This latter issue was in fact presented as the raison d'etre of the research: "The challenge for nutritionists is to improve women's intake of milk products", with "improve" = "increase". This second criticism was not addressed at all. Rather, it is sidestepped with obfuscation, especially by quotation out of context.

To take but one example among many: in two places I am accused of asserting that the dietary guidelines dealing with calcium intake were the work of "Dairy Board economists and marketeers". In fact, I used that phrase in the context of equating "improved" with "increased" intake. The Horwath approach to the criticism is reductio ad absurdum in the hope of diverting it!

Few readers will bother to go back and compare the texts in question, but I am confident that any who do will find other examples of the above and that my letter did contain valid concerns that have not been adequately addressed.

Rather than accusing Otago researchers of "allow(ing) sponsorship to dictate research objectives" or alleging that nutritional science is "corrupted by industry", as Horwath claims, the final section of my letter went from the particular to the general in order to draw a lesson.

Researchers in New Zealand are being urged, in fact forced by government philosphy, restructuring, and funding policies, to seek research monies from other sources. These sources are very few, and most have not previously been used to funding research outside their own organisation. Traditionally the least used has been industry, and the research with which it has been most familiar has been product development and marketing, related directly to the prime aim of making profits. Funding research without there being a self-interest motive has been by no means the norm.

Witness the furore stirred up as I write over the educational text funded by tobacco giant Philip Morris! The author claims there has been no pressure from the company -- large numbers of teachers seem not to accept this. With increasing legislative pressure, taxation, and litigation, there is a more than just subliminal message to young people in a tobacco company sponsoring a pamphlet urging them to make their own choices!

Now this was not company-funded research, but the issue is identical: a suspicion that "who pays the piper calls the tune"! Chris Harris [Retorts, Feb] makes an essentially similar point.

Many scientists are worried that without considerable care private funding can lead to stultified, biased, unjustifiably directed research. These worries can be avoided, and private companies do fund research without exerting undue direction, but it requires vigilance and care on the part of the researcher.

Horwath's September report, as much because of what was not said as because of its contents, is able to be interpreted as research directed by the funder and thus serves as a good base from which to open up this general issue.

My awareness of the issue goes back at least to concern about the ethics of university staff being contracted to undertake weapons research for armed forces and manufacturers in the days of the Vietnam war. There was much controversy over this at the time.

Comparable issues must face Japanese researchers involved with Minke whales killed for "research". The problem came up also at last year's NZ Skeptics conference with discussion on promotion of shark cartilage as a health supplement. [see also, GIGO, April 1996]

As we are forced more and more to find funding outside the public domain this issue will loom larger, and it should be helpful to address the problem. I do not claim special expertise -- my own research has not involved private funding -- but as a Head of Department and a supervisor of student thesis research I have had to be conscious of the issues involved.

It has been important to gain company funding for the students, many of whom could not have done their degree without it, but at the same time their interests and the university's academic integrity and standards had to be protected. This involved:

• ensuring the project was academically suited to the level of the degree
• ensuring that supervision of the student and project remained unequivocally with my Department, including that the student was answerable only to the supervisor/Department
• protecting the student's publication rights, even if there was an initial period of confidentiality

With such matters fully discussed with funder and student, and with an explicit agreement/contract, I have not experienced any problems with any of the arrangements in which I have participated. The same approach has occurred successfully with local bodies, now-defunct government bodies, CRIs, etc.

It's all a matter of maximising independence and maintaining vigilance. Which means the researcher consciously thinking through the relationship between his/her ethics and responsibilities to science and society on the one hand, and the potential funder's actual or possible demands.

Few New Zealand companies are yet aware of the benefits to be gained from research not directly connected with their product or its market. To get their funding we must convince them. Let's also be fully aware of the pitfalls! And of the danger to our science and our reputations if we appear too tied to narrow funder interests!

Dr Jack Grant-Mackie is an Honorary Research Associate in the Geology Department, University of Auckland.