A study in the journal PLOS ONE found that six members of a 20-member panel studying genetically engineered crops had one or more financial conflicts of interest, none of which were disclosed in the panel’s report.
The study, “Conflicts of interest among committee members in the National Academies’ genetically engineered crop study,” published on Feb. 28, was written by Shelly Krimsky of the Department of Urban & Environmental Policy & Panning, Tufts University, and Tim Schwab of the environmental advocacy group, Food & Water Watch.
The study noted that “disclosure of conflicts of interest by individuals and institutions has become a widely accepted ethical norm and a legal requirement in science and medicine.” The GE report, which was issued in May 2016 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, “stated, without qualification, that the NASEM ‘did not identify’ any conflicts of interest among the twenty panel members,” the study says.
But the study found a number of conflicts of interest (COIs). “Five individuals received research funding from for-profit companies related to the subject matter of the report and five had patents or patent applications on the subject matter of GE crops. Four panel members had two financial COIs. In total there were ten financial COIs among the six committee members, and it would appear that most of these conflicts meet the NASEM’s own standards for financial COIs,” the study said.
In another panel studying the future of biotechnology, the National Academies disclosed that two members had conflicts of interest. But the two were kept on the panel, the New York Times reported, because the academies could not find anyone with the same expertise.