Should we trust our restaurants to provide us safe food?

Our bodies are probably a whole lot more resilient (and resistant to disease) than most of us are willing to give them credit for.

Just yesterday I read an article that referenced some of the results of poor hygiene practices engaged in (or, rather, hygiene practices not engaged in) by many employees at different fast food joints.

It didn't discuss any of the rather startling chemical ingredients added to so many of the even supposedly "healthy" foods available at Americans' favorite restaurants.

It didn't reference the lousy--I mean, truly horrific--feed practices followed by the CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feed[ing] Operations; often likened to the inhumane and horrifying Nazi concentration/death camps of the 1930s and early '40s) that supply most of the meat used in the restaurants we frequent. I mean, were you aware that a Pfizer Pharmaceuticals subsidiary has been including arsenic--a known carcinogen--in its chicken feed for years? (How did they justify this adulteration? On the grounds that the arsenic never found its way into the human food chain because the chickens pooped it out before it became incorporated within their meat. Of course, now they tell us that, "Oh! Sorry about that! Hmmmm. I guess it is in the chicken meat, after all!" . . . Oh. . . . Except . . . now wait a second! Where did all that chicken poop go? . . . No! You've got to be kidding me! . . . Nope. The majority of the chicken litter went into cow feed. . . . So did the FDA really think we were being protected from Pfizer's arsenic-laced chicken feed after all?)

But this morning, I came across another article about how the FDA refuses to promote health with respect to the ubiquitous use of antibiotics in animal feed. Such enforcement would be "too expensive and resource intensive," you see. It took them 12 1/2 years finally, to respond to a citizen petition seeking rescension of the FDA's approval of subtherapeutic uses of antibiotics in livestock feed.

The response to petitioners says,

Although we share your concern about the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals for growth promotion and feed efficiency indications (i.e., production uses), . . . FDA is denying your petition.

Why? Two reasons (and, of course, remember that it has taken the FDA 12 1/2 years to come to this conclusion!):

1. "[B]ecause there is a formal evidentiary process that must be followed before new animal drug approvals may be withdrawn. In order to withdraw a new animal drug’s approval, FDA must follow a number of statutory requirements, such as providing the sponsor of the new animal drug with notice that the Agency proposes to withdraw approval of the drug and an opportunity for a formal evidentiary hearing on the matter. FDA cannot withdraw approval of a new animal drug until the legally-mandated process is complete. . . .
   
   "FDA must provide the drug’s sponsor with notice and an opportunity for a formal administrative hearing ("NOOH").
   
   "Because no hearings have been held with respect to the animal drugs at issue in the Citizen Petition, and because the Commissioner has not made any final determination about whether grounds for withdrawal under section 5 12(e) of the FD&C Act have been satisfied, the relief requested in the Citizen Petition cannot be granted at this time."
    
2. "Recognizing that the process of reviewing safety information for antimicrobial drugs approved before 2003, and pursuing withdrawal proceedings in some cases, would take many years and would impose significant resource demands on the Agency, in June 2010, FDA proposed a different strategy to promote the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals in a draft guidance entitled, 'The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals' draft Guidance for Industry #209 ('draft GFT 9209'). . . .
   
   "Draft GFI #209 proposes two principles aimed at ensuring the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals. The first principle set out in the draft guidance is that the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in foodproducing animals should be limited to those uses that are considered necessary for assuring animal health. As set out in the draft guidance, FDA does not consider production uses of such drugs to be necessary for assuring animal health. . . . [I.e., "We agree that the use of these antibiotics is not necessary for assuring animal health. So these drugs really ought not to be used for promoting growth. But . . ." --JAH] The second principle set out in the draft guidance is that the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals should be limited to those uses that include veterinary oversight or consultation. This principle speaks to the need for the scientific and clinical training of licensed veterinarians in assuring that medically important antimicrobials are used in a judicious manner. . . . [So, again, "We agree with you. However . . ." --JAH]
   
   "Based on feedback this Agency has received following the issuance of draft GFI #209, FDA believes that the animal pharmaceutical industry is generally responsive to the prospect of working cooperatively with the Agency to implement the principles recommended in draft GFI #209. FDA intends to work with sponsors who approach FDA and are interested in working cooperatively with the Agency to phase out production uses of medically important antimicrobials and to transition medically important antimicrobials currently approved for over-the-counter use in food-producing animals to a marketing status that involves veterinary oversight."

Really? The pharmaceutical industry is "generally responsive" to the prospect of phasing out the use of this huge source of revenue because it is concerned for the health of human beings? When the FDA itself, in 1977, found that adding antibiotics to animal feed undeniably causes antibiotic resistance? Is Big Pharma any more interested in human health than Big Tobacco?

Somehow, I doubt it!

(By the way, if you want a virtually identical response--only six and a half years in the making--to a virtually identical petition, you can find it here.)

But getting back to the original point of this post: Sadly, there are precious few restaurants to which you can go where they will feed you all-natural, truly open-range, grass-fed, grass-finished meats.

And I will confess that I haven't yet weaned myself from my favorite hamburgers at certain hamburger joints. But the more I learn about our food, the more I am moving toward that kind of lifestyle. Who wants to be filling their bodies with the kind of junk the FDA, Big Pharma, and Industrial Agriculture want to push upon us?

PS: For the original news release on the FDA decision, please see PR Newsline's FDA Denies Citizen Petitions on Animal Antibiotics.

Rick Perry's Gardasil problem

I've noticed that "conservative" news sources seem to be touting Rick Perry for president. What's strange: Just a couple of days before, I ran across a story about his ties to the drug company Merck . . . and how, it appears, he abused his power as governor of Texas to attempt to grant Merck a tremendous boon, in terms of sales, at the awful expense of the people of Texas, whose interests you would hope he would have held of highest importance.

Considering that background story, and considering how it appears the U.S. government is already controlled, to too great an extent, by Big Pharma and Corporate Agriculture interests--both of which might reasonably be shown to be contributing to the destruction of Americans' and, in fact, almost all humans' health--I wonder: do we really want a Rick Perry kind of person representing us as president?

I first ran across this story in a poorly-researched--or, at least, horribly worded!--article by Christina Luisa in NaturalNews.com.

In February of 2007, [Rick Perry,] the governor of Texas[,] issued an executive order that bypassed the will of the Texas people and the entire legislature, mandating the vaccination of young girls -- in Grade 6 in Texas -- with the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company in charge of the . . . venture and the chief distributor of the vaccine, was the same drug company that was reported to have given thousands of dollars to Perry's campaign efforts.

The vaccine was given FDA approval in June 2006 then rushed to the market without proper testing through clinical trials. . . . Only 8 months later Gov. Perry signed the executive order mandating this vaccine to all young girls (and later young boys). . . .

Although there are over 25 million people in the state of Texas, as a justification for his actions, Perry reported that there were . . . 391 deaths of women by cervical cancer -- [none of which deaths had] been proven to be caused by the HPV virus to begin with. . . .

[O]nly four months after Perry signed his order for mandated Gardasil vaccines, there were 13 cases of adverse vaccine reactions reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] database. There were thousands more negative reactions reported that were never touched by the mainstream media. By this alone, Rick Perry should have dismantled his executive order - but did he? Certainly not. . . .

I think Ms Luisa's heart is in the right place, but as numerous other sources have noted,

Just six weeks after Perry put pen to paper, the Texas House rebuked him on March 14, 2007, passing HB 1098, overturning his executive order by a vote of 119-21. The Senate followed suit the following month by a vote of 30-1.

Realizing both chambers had large enough majorities to override a veto, Perry opted to let the bill [overturning his order] become law without his signature. On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

So I'm not sure why Luisa talks about Perry failing to dismantle his executive order.

But, nonetheless, there is a serious story here. And I'm led to wonder: Do we want a man to serve as president who is so willing to permit special interest groups like Merck to bully hundreds of thousands of people to use their children as guinea pigs for expensive medical experiments (Gardasil required/requires a series of three shots, each costing approximately $120!) . . . and then attempt to turn the tables on those who call him for his bad judgment by suggesting that they lack compassion for women and girls:

On May 8, the day the law went into effect, Perry held a press conference surrounded by women touched by cervical cancer. He bemoaned the tenor of a debate that he asserted had been "hijacked by politics and posturing," and blamed future cervical cancer deaths on those who opposed his mandate -- many of whom were fellow Republicans.

In a grand flourish, Perry thanked the small minority of legislators who sided with him: "They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency."

In response, the sponsor of HB 1098, Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, [said,] "Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls." . . .

And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

But perhaps we should ignore these concerns. Perry had it on good authority that the vaccine was wonderful. After all,

his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and . . . his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls.

Shouldn't he be able to trust such people to give him the real scoop on the efficacy of Merck's drugs?

Your federal taxes protecting scientifically-based medicine?

I was floored by Dr. Douglass' claim this morning:

Inside the mystery placebos

Why bother creating a good drug -- all you really need to do is come up with a bad placebo.

Statins, for example, would look positively fantastic if you could somehow spike the placebo with strychnine.

Far-fetched? Maybe not -- because the truth is, nobody knows what the heck is in most of the placebos used in drug trials.

Nobody, that is, except for the researchers and their Big Pharma backers.

In a new analysis, researchers looked at 176 studies published in four major medical journals between January 2008 and December 2009 to see what placebos were used.

They didn't get very far: Just 8.2 percent of all pill studies and 26.7 percent of all injection studies disclosed the contents of the placebo, according to the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Think that's outrageous? That's nothing -- the real outrage here is that the feds have NO requirement at all that researchers disclose the contents of their placebos.

None.

And if you think researchers aren't taking full advantage of that little loophole, well, there's probably a job opening for you at the FDA.

But all you need to do is look at some of the placebos that we do have information on to realize there's plenty of room for funny business.

Take the Gardasil vaccine I've been warning you about. [For some of Douglass' warnings, see for example, his report on adverse reactions to the vaccine released by the FDA only after a FOIA demand by Judicial Watch, the non-partisan conservative anti-corruption watchdog organization; or this follow-up from last month--JAH]

In one trial, the researchers spiked the placebo with aluminum, a metal that can cause the same types of nerve damage that have been linked to Gardasil.

That's a placebo "effect" straight out of hell.

In a study mentioned in the new analysis, a med for anorexic cancer patients went up against a "placebo" made of lactose. Of course, cancer patients are often lactose intolerant, and a lactose pill will certainly cause side effects.

And if I know that, you can bet the researchers behind that study sure as heck did as well.

Think about that next time you read about a "placebo-controlled" trial -- because in reality, there's no control at all.

Douglass is often pooh-poohed as a quack. I figure I need to be extra-vigilant if I am going to quote him. So I decided to look up this un-referenced analytical study. Is it a hoax?

Apparently not.

It appeared just a little over a month ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine (October 19, 2010 153:532-535)--abstract available for free here. And though I have not read the full article, every reference elsewhere on the 'net indicates Dr. Douglass is accurately communicating the study's findings. The study authors themselves graciously conclude, "Because the nature of the placebo can influence trial outcomes, placebo formulation should be disclosed in reports of placebo-controlled trials."

Respondents to the study are a bit more outspoken:

It [is a big] ethical problem when the placebo in some cases now have been shown to actually have had adverse effects on these patients['] health, by not being acceptable zero point-standards for the actual medications on trial.

. . . It is also of ethical concern when the patients having the luck of being selected for the "proper" medical treatment, have actually been subjected to medication where its positive effect has been overestimated, non-exist[ant], or even of the negative kind; and all because the treatment effects ha[ve] been compared to a placebo which was not a non-active zero-point-substance, but rather a substance having negative health effects, and thereby, in the comparison, ended up documenting a false positive medical healing effect of the medication.

Conclusion: We now have no way of knowing which medicines are being beneficial to the patients being treated, and which are having no effects at all, or which are actually having negative effects on the patients['] health.

With this report, the whole of pharmaceutical research have lost its credibility. It may or may not be a cynical act by the individual researcher and/or by his/her research group or leader. It is, however, not easy to make excuses for the pharmaceutical companies, since the actual research as a common universal procedure, should have been submitted to meticulous quality control by independ[e]nt researchers h[a]ving no bonds to the company, before a final approval was being given, and the medication was being introduced to the medical community.

This report is weakening the whole foundation wall of all pharmaceutical research. It is from now on not possible to trust any existing information about the effects and side-effects of pharmaceutical medicine. Unfair as it may be, this will affect honest and dishonest researchers alike!

There's more, but I will encourage you to read the comments for yourself.

. . . This kind of report continues to undermine my faith in Big Pharma and the FDA as caretakers of my health. How about you?

Follow the money, Part 1

I've had a number of conversations in the last few weeks that have all led me to the same conclusion: It really does make sense to "follow the money" when it comes to evaluating the claims of various experts. It's not that an expert deliberately misleads or lies due to funding sources. Rather, the advice the expert provides may be skewed by--he or she may be rendered ignorant as a result of--funding sources (or the lack thereof).

This idea came up most recently just yesterday, at lunch.

One of my family members commented that medical doctors, in general, are ignorant about a lot of the impact of diet on health (i.e., they don't "even" recognize diseases or disease conditions caused by inappropriate diet and/or diseases or disease conditions that are only treatable by change in diet) . . . because . . . well, there is no money in it for them.

And that's not to say they are "only in it [medicine] for the money." Rather, that's to acknowledge that . . .

• The entire conventional medical (allopathic medical) approach--believed in and practiced by the doctors and their staffs, and believed in and pursued by their patients--has to do with diagnosing a condition that can be "fixed" ("healed") by a medicine and/or procedure. . . . If there is no known prescribable medicine and/or procedure, then . . . well, . . .
  
  • The doctor has failed to fulfill his patient's expectations. ("You're supposed to have a prescription for this! A nostrum! A medication! A 'magic bullet' that takes care of these kinds of problems! . . . You're supposed to be able to 'fix' me! . . . I shouldn't have to change my lifestyle in order to 'fix myself'!")
    
  • There are so many conditions for which the medical doctor does have a medication he or she can prescribe, why would he or she waste the time studying conditions that don't match that model?
    
    But even prior to the doctor's motivations and/or incentives,
    
  • What's in it for pharmaceutical companies . . . or food companies, for that matter . . . to study dietary solutions? Foods, in general, are non-patentable. So to discover that cherries, for instance, reduce inflammation: who is going to pay for the research and/or pay to ensure medical students are taught about cherries' unique healing attributes?

More or less saying what I have just said, but from a different angle:

• With no financial incentives, the pharmaceutical industry isn't going to ensure physicians are instructed about the benefits of dietary changes. Rather, their incentives are all aligned with ignoring diet and, rather, producing, distributing and marketing more drugs.
  
• Even, interestingly, the FDA--what should be a neutral "policeman" in this arena--is financially incentivized to promote drugs and ignore--or, actually, discriminate against dietary solutions to disease.
  
  How and why is this the case?
  
  Drug manufacturers have to invest millions--indeed, we are given to believe, normally hundreds of millions--of dollars to jump through all the hoops of a New Drug Application required for FDA approval of any drug "made by a different manufacturer, [that] uses different excipients or inactive ingredients, is used for a different purpose, or undergoes any substantial change" from those already on the market.
  
  And you are probably thinking, "So what does that have to do with dietary solutions to disease?"
  
  Well, as numerous companies and food trade groups have discovered to their own dismay, "If you dare discuss the health benefits of any food or natural substance while you are selling such items, you will be branded a criminal by the FDA, threatened with criminal prosecution and potentially have your company raided by the FDA along with armed law enforcement agents with guns drawn." (Check out FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans for a broad overview. But for more specific examples of what I'm talking about, see the story about Diamond Foods and what happened when it attempted to promote the health benefits of walnuts. Or the story of the FDA as it came against marketers of cherries who referenced and/or linked to scientific studies that described health benefits of cherries.)
  
  Because Mike Adams, the author of the articles I have just referenced, sometimes states his case in a deliberately provocative manner, let me link to a few typical warning letters from the FDA, so you can see how they phrase things.
  
  Check out, for example, this letter to Payson Fruit Growers of Payson, Utah, or to Cherry Lands Best of Appleton, Wisconsin. --Or take a look at any of the dozens of similar "Labeling and Promotional Violations" letters on the FDA website. --October 17, 2005 was a good date for cherry marketers.
  
  As the letters explain, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease in man are drugs" and any health claims made for any product "cause [such] product to be a drug."
  

  Because [cherries, walnuts, or whatever food are] not generally recognized as safe and effective when used as labeled, [they are] also . . . new drug[s] as defined in Section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)]. Under Section 505 of the Act (21 U.S .C. 355), a new drug may not be legally marketed in the United States without an approved New Drug Application (NDA).

But this is not only an issue when it comes to foods--as our family was discussing yesterday.

It comes out in areas like farming and gardening as well.

Several weeks ago, one of my brothers raised questions about International Ag Labs, the soils testing and amendment recommending company whose services we have chosen as we seek to improve the soil on our prospective farm and in our garden. He referenced a post by a skeptical Extension Specialist in Urban Horticulture.

The initial post is mildly critical of IAL and, as I said, it is clearly skeptical. But it sounds relatively open-minded. As happens so often with some blogs, however, fireworks begin to explode in the comments afterward (including what the blogger herself, Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott, says).

Several IAL clients respond: "Look at the results! Here's my story!"

Chalker-Scott and other skeptics reply, "That's not science." And, as she notes (February 23, 2010):

My job - and the job of ANY university extension specialist - is to provide science-based information to the public. . . . What you won't find from university scientists, including extension specialists like myself, is a promotion of products or practices with no basis in science.

Subsequent discussion is then comprised primarily of further testimonials . . .

• "Dear Linda, I have run over 600 soil tests through IAL in the past 4 years. I have a very successful business that has been serving our community for over 55 years. We used other labs here in California with very poor results. I will say with out a doubt that the information that comes from IAL is remarkable and has help my business grow because of the results." --George Schnackenberg.
  
  Or,
  
• "I am an amateur gardener. I tried IAL last year and had the joy of tasting some of the most amazing vegetables. For example, broccoli that was actually sweet like carrots." --Nick.
  
  And,
  
• "I'm a small market farmer not a scientist. IAL's recommendations worked for me. I used the [products IAL recommended]. My pluots averaged 20-22 Brix. You can't argue with results. It is my understanding that [the materials work in the following way. However,] I don't have to know exactly how it works I just know it works." --Jeannie.
  
• Etc.

. . . and Chalker-Scott and one of her cohorts replying (in three separate comments dated February 25, 2010) with,

• "I'm sorry, but if you want me (or any other scientist) to be convinced of a particular viewpoint, then support it with published, peer-reviewed data. That's the way science works. If you don't like the accepted paradigm, then don't use it. But don't expect scientists to take you seriously.
  
• "Anecdotes, regardless of how passionately people believe them, aren't scientific data."
  
  And,
  
• "I'm happy to hear that your garden is doing well, but the fact that you followed IAL's recommendations does not prove that those recommendations are any better than the recommendations from another lab. Furthermore, it's possible that, by using IAL's recommendations, you overfertilized making your plants look good but poisoning the environment. To test these possibilities side by side studies need to be conducted. Without studies like these we're left with anecdotal evidence which carries little weight. Once again, show us the science which proves IAL gives recommendations which are better than other labs -- show us evidence supporting the wacky things they seem to be recommending -- We won't be changing our minds without that kind of data."

Things get a bit nasty (or, shall we say, at least testy) as the IAL promoters tell their stories and charge the scientists with being closed-minded and--not quite in so many words, but, in essence--being toadies to and fools for "big ag" corporations like Monsanto. And the scientists respond with increasing exasperation at what they perceive as unfair charges.

I don't want to get sidelined with a discussion about methods of "argumentation" (or, in far too many cases, presentation--since, too often, the anti-professorial disputants present no real arguments but, instead, "simply" spew venom). People like "The Justin" are merely embarrassing. And especially so when put up against Chalker-Scott's astonishingly gracious response to a wholly obnoxious and venomous diatribe.

But Chalker-Scott and her fellow Garden Professors eventually "can't take" the . . . ummmm . . . the . . . what we might call . . . anti-scientistic libels anymore.

In an October 13 post she admits, "I’m angry. Really, really angry. . . . [And] this is why I’m mad. There’s widespread perception among nonacademic types that corporate grant money “buys” results. That’s insulting. Most scientists do what they do because they love the thrill of discovery. There’s no thrill if you’ve rigged the results. Moreover, if you rig the results you’re going to be found out . . . eventually."

The next day, her co-blogger, Jeff Gillman, writes a thoughtful post about Where the Money Comes From:

After reading Linda’s excellent post yesterday I got to thinking about all of the discussions I have had over the years with people who didn’t know or understand where we (and by we, I mean my research group) got the money to do the work which we do. Oh, they thought they knew, but they were usually way, way off.

So he then lists five sources:

1. Endowment (a sizable fund whose earnings are used to underwrite a professor's salary, research expenses, etc.).
   
2. Hard ("fixed") funding from the university (to enable a professor to pursue research in line with his or her area of expertise).
   
3. Gifts (one-time presents of money).
   
4. Government Grant.
   
5. Industry Grant ("similar to a Government Grant except that it is given by an industry group, such as the Minnesota Turf and Grounds Foundation, or by a particular company, such as Bayer. Industry groups are a preferred source of income, [because] money from chemical companies, and other independent companies, does have a little bit of a stigma associated with it – it feels like you’re doing something to benefit one company instead of society as a whole. Chemical company money is not sneered at, but often you do have to conduct research that may not be at the top of your priority list").

As for conflicts of interest:

I’d like to conclude by saying that, in the case of dollars from chemical companies, I don’t personally know of any researcher who has purposefully falsified, failed to report, skewed, or selectively excluded data to make the chemical company happier with the results. Doing so would ultimately just make that researcher (and the chemical company) look like an idiot.

I have personally given data to chemical companies which shows that their stuff doesn’t work that well – they don’t like it, but they appreciate it – marketing something that doesn’t work isn’t good for anyone. I do know of a case where a researcher proposed a study to a large chemical company which would examine unseen dangers of a particular pesticide and was turned down – this was disappointing to me. I think that many companies feel that they have a duty to seek out obvious dangers and that the government has a responsibility to fund research investigating unseen or unlikely dangers – but that’s just my own opinion.

My thought: I don't think these professors--or 99.9% of all professors or researchers--engage in any purposefully misleading, fraudulent, or, as Chalker-Scott describes it, "rigged" research. They would be and/or are genuinely horrified to find themselves being charged with acting as shills for big-ag chemical companies like Monsanto.

However, I think Chalker-Scott and Gillman somehow forget the golden rule that "He who has the gold makes the rules." And the "rules" that companies like Monsanto are able to establish include prescriptions of what will be studied (not the specific results that a researcher is to arrive at, but, "simply," the subject matter itself). Companies like Monsanto have enough potential profit to make if a study turns their way, and/or, they believe they can gain enough social capital by funding certain relatively innocuous studies, that . . . it behooves them to fund such studies.

For research projects that could prove wonderfully profitable if it goes "right" (or terribly destructive to the sponsor's bottom line if it goes "wrong"), the sponsor need "merely" track the project as it goes forward. And if it appears test results are heading in the "wrong" direction for the company's interests, the company need "merely" terminate the research and/or deep-six the results.

We'll talk more about some of those kinds of situations in "Follow the money, Part 2."

Meanwhile, organizations like International Ag Labs that have no patentable products that could potentially gain traction in the marketplace if certain research projects turned out in their favor: what incentives do they have to sponsor the kind of research that Chalker-Scott and her cohorts demand?

They have none.