PANNA: An Organized Attack?

On the day Quist and Chapela's paper was published, a series of email messages was posted to a pro-biotech listserv called AgBioWorld. The first message came from someone named "Mary Murphy," who wrote, "Chapela is on the board of directors of the Pesticide Action Network, and therefore not exactly what you'd call an unbiased writer." Another message followed, falsely stating that Chapela's paper had not been peer-reviewed, that he was "first and foremost an activist," and that the research had been published in collusion with environmentalists. Hundreds of messages were posted to the list, many questioning Quist and Chapela's motivations as well as their methods. Some called for Chapela to be fired from his post at the University. As the campaign against the study grew, AgBioWorld circulated a petition pointing to the paper's "fundamental flaws."

In April, Nature published two letters critical of Quist and Chapela's study, as well as a note from Philip Campbell, the editor, rescinding the journal's support for the original paper. The authors of both letters were either currently students and faculty at UC Berkeley or had been in the recent past, had supported the University's contract with the biotech company Novartis (now Syngenta); Ignacio Chapela and David Quist were outspoken critics of the agreement (see Novartis and the University of California). According to Campbell, he sent the paper to three referees before deciding to retract. An investigative news show in the UK, Newsnight, obtained copies of the referees' confidential comments. Only one thought the paper should be retracted, yet Campbell published the retraction citing only the critical referee. Campbell continues to maintain that he was not pressured into printing the retraction.

At the end of May 2002, George Monbiot, a columnist with the highly respected UK newspaper The Guardian, published an article describing how the Bivings Group, a public relations company contracted to Monsanto, invented fake people to post messages on internet listservs. "These phantoms had launched a campaign to force Nature magazine to retract a paper it had published, alleging that native corn in Mexico had been contaminated with genetically engineered pollen," Monbiot wrote in his column. Investigations revealed that "Mary Murphy" was one of these phantoms.

While Quist and Chapela admit that they had made some minor mistakes in their study, they stand behind their main conclusions. As Chapela stated in a letter to The Guardian, "Science has progressed in modern times by the presentation of results which are subsequently refined or rectified by further empirical work. …The coordinated attempt to discredit our discoveries in the public piazza sends a chilling message to those who would dare ask important but uncomfortable questions and find their truthful answers. It is an assault on the very foundation of science."

Sources: The Guardian (UK), May 14, May 24 and May 29, 2002; The East Bay Express, May 29, 2002.