

Journals Warned to Keep a Tight Lid on Diesel Exposure Data - cs702
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/journals-warned-to-keep-a-tight.html

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zipdog
I've done some work for a research team dealing with air exposure to known and
suspected carcinogens and (I think) I can appreciate both sides of this. In
order to do the research my team signed various agreements related to data and
any publication is dependent on approval from the data sources. Science is
about free publication but we don't own the data so we have to play by their
rules to access it. The primary reason in our case was an earlier publication
of preliminary data that had been sent to media and caused a big stir with
damning headlines. Unfortunately the legitimately scientific practice of
publishing whatever you have and letting the scientific community build on it
becomes quite problematic when the media broadcasts interim results as
findings (and then land values plummet, or political pressure halts a
multimillion dollar project). So there might be a legitimate reason for the
legal threats (Though the article implies otherwise)

On the other hand, pinning down environmental causes of cancer is shockingly
difficult and even partial results are very useful for the research because we
simply can't put a test subject in a box and pump it full of a chemical to see
if they get cancer. Most known carcinogens (by the IARC definition) are known
through studies on workplace exposure.

It would be a serious blow if the study had concrete evidence but the legal
threats managed to delay publication until after IARC finishes its review.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _It would be a serious blow if the study had concrete evidence but the legal
> threats managed to delay publication until after IARC finishes its review._

In fact, it would probably result in liability. We can only hope that they
have their heads handed to themselves if true.

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feralchimp
> a coalition of mining industry groups are legally entitled to review data
> from the study before publication

You can't blame the lobbyists' lawyers for trying to enforce a provision that
their clients successfully negotiated. You should be ripshit that they were
able to negotiate the provision in the first place.

~~~
aero142
I can and do blame them for being immoral and this clearly demonstrates that
they have no interest in integrity or the truth. I don't "blame" them in any
legal sense however.

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leot
Every day an industry lobbyist succeeds in delaying the release of
inconvenient information is a quantifiable victory.

It doesn't matter if "the truth will out" eventually -- all industry cares
about is the area under the profit curve.

~~~
robertskmiles
Streisand Effect though. Now people know that attempts were made to suppress
the information, they are likely to take a much greater interest than they
otherwise would, and the information will get a lot more attention and
potentially do a lot more damage.

~~~
cs702
I hope you're right about these lobbyists being subjected to the Streisand
Effect to a meaningful extent, but I doubt the broad public will ever take a
much greater interest in this situation, because only a tiny, self-selected
portion of the population ever comes across -- let alone reads -- articles in
AAAS's Science magazine. (An even tinier, also self-selected group reads
submissions and/or participates in discussions posted on HN.)

Still, I hope you're right...

~~~
robertskmiles
I expect the bigger HN-like sites could drive a substantial streisand effect
here. I'm thinking of reddit in particular.

~~~
cs702
I just looked and it turns out this link has already been submitted to Reddit,
where it gathered fewer votes -- and generated fewer comments -- than on HN:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pvctl/journals_warn...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pvctl/journals_warned_to_keep_a_tight_lid_on_diesel)

The general public just can't -- or doesn't want to -- invest the time &
effort required to learn about and pass judgment on these kinds of situations.

Arguably, this is what allows businesses, lobbyists, and others to get away
with unethical behavior.

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kaybe
So what would happen if someone put it up on wikileaks or similar?

Let's see: -No peer review, ok, but after this publicity some other scientists
could comment on it and judge it. -The lobbyists could claim it was fake.
(Probably not a problem, the institutes could back it up.) -Now, who would the
"consequences" be directed at? The two institutes (NIOSH and NCI)?

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cs702
I just noticed that one of the HN editors changed the title of this submission
(I'm the submitter).

TO HN EDITORS: For the record, I did not try to juice up the title when I
submitted this! The original title that showed up on my RSS reader was "Patton
Boggs Lobbyists Threatens Scientific Journals with 'Consequences' If They
Publish or Distribute Diesel Exposure Data" ( source:
<http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/links-22312.html> ) I just shortened
this title to less than 80 characters.

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jrockway
In other news: jrockway threatens "consequences" (including, but not limited
to, whining on twitter) unless everyone gives me chocolate covered espresso
beans.

Wait, my threat doesn't influence you? That's a shame, because I really wanted
some caffeinated chocolate.

(Also, we don't even need to publish the study anymore, we have something even
more damning than scientific fact: the Streisand effect. Maybe they should
threaten "consequences" for talking about their threat of consequences. And so
on.)

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droithomme
Perhaps the government funded study is nothing but good news and that's why
they want to block publication?

On the other hand, that's probably a long shot.

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ExpiredLink
The headline on the main page currently doesn't match the headline on this
page. I guess this is an example of 'eventual consistency'.

~~~
GFischer
According to the submitter, an editor changed the headline:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3626011>

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ahi
Presumably the data is now publicly available? Or at least FOIA-able? What's
stopping me from running my own analysis and writing my own paper? I am not
part of any agreement the industry made with DEMS.

