I have been struggling this week with the strange notion that if Lady Macbeth were here she would be spitting her hate-filled mother's milk at the politically compromised scientists who work for the International Joint Commission that oversees the management of the Great Lakes.
Three weeks ago, a report by the IJC science advisory council caused a near panic among breast feeding mothers. The women who read news accounts suggesting that new evidence showed polychlorinated biphenyls in breast milk were more dangerous than had been previously thought. Specifically, they were told that half the offspring of female rhesus monkeys with PCB levels in their milk (levels that had been thought safe in humans) died within four months after birth. Surviving infants had severe memory problems and movement impairment that was evident even three years later.
… The report suggested that the current safety standards for PCBs in breat milk were anywhere from 100 to 1,000 times too high.
Scary, scary stuff. But I am here to tell you that much of the science reported within that paper is either wrong or so massively incomplete that it draws erroneous implications from the studies it quotes. And that the authors of the report admit they didn't present the whole truth because they believed terrified nursing mothers would make potent allies in their fight against Great Lakes Pollution. (emphasis mine)
…. When John Vallentyne, the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters scientist who heads up the IJC scientific advisory board, was asked if the report hadn't consciously tried to play up the fears of contaminated breast milk to recruit fearful mothers in the fight against lake pollution, he was candid, "In essence you are right," he says. If so, why did the report not mention qualifications about the science? "What you are advocating is what you in the media curse us for: Big words, long sentences, qualifications," he says.
It seems that the right politics was more important than the muddy truth for IJC scientists. "IJC is in some ways an advocacy group," says Dr. Hall. And as such he can argue that the ends justify the means. "What if we are totally wrong [about PCB in breast milk] and the environment is cleaned up. What have we lost," he says.(emphasis mine)
What can I say? You have lost my trust in you as scientists. You have lost nursing mother's trust that you won't cynically manipulate their fears and feelings. You've lost touch with the truth. And you have made gall out of mother's milk.
Shame, shame.
"Self-regulated professions such as lawyers, engineers and doctors provide a mechanism for punishing unethical behavior; no such device seems to exist to tarnish the reputation of these scoundrels. Perhaps a case could be made for the misuse of public funds but if the law cannot be made to bear on them, all we may be able to do is shower them with the scorn they deserve."
