Sunita Narain: Experiments with proven truth

DOWN TO EARTH/ India's scientific credibility is at stake with the safe-pesticides' debate

Endosulfan is a pesticide that has been aerially sprayed for 20 years over cashew plantations in Kerala. In 2001, listening to the people living adjacent to the plantation, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), directed the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) to conduct a scientific study on the causes of the horrendous diseases in the village.

Their report, submitted in early 2002, noted the presence of alpha and beta endosulfan "" the pesticide's isomers "" in soil, water as well as blood samples of children, collected from the region. This implied that the pesticide persists in the environment.

The report also found that the samples of blood collected from Padre (the village) showed high levels of endosulfan compared to samples collected from the control village of Meenja Panchayat. In its considered view, "endosulfan was the causative factor" for health problems in the village.

But this was not the end of the story. In September 2002, the Central government set up a committee to investigate NIOH's study and other related studies and to recommend future steps.

In 2003, the committee report was submitted to and immediately accepted by the government. The report exonerated the pesticide completely since it concluded that there was no link between the use of endosulfan and the health problems of the village.

The report, which incidentally was not based on consensus, dismissed the NIOH report as unscientific because it did not conform to the "known" properties and toxicology of the pesticide.

Instead, it endorsed the findings of a private laboratory "" the Tamil Nadu-based Fredrick Institute of Plant Protection and Toxicology (FIPPAT, now known as the International Institute of Biotechnology and Toxicology) "" which had concluded that it did not find any endosulfan residues in human blood and only negligible amounts of the pesticide in the environment.

But now investigations have revealed that this scientific study done by FIPPAT was doctored. Not only was damning evidence against endosulfan suppressed, facts and figures were deliberately manipulated and misreported.

A scrutiny of FIPPAT's analytical report, dated June 4, 2001, shows that the institute had actually found both alpha and beta endosulfan residues in human blood samples.

It, however, chose not to disclose this information and fudged its data. The institute underreported the levels of residues found in the environment, too.

Although FIPPAT had come across traces of alpha and beta endosulfan, it conveyed the impression that the isomers had broken down quickly to form endosulfan sulphate "" a metabolite of the pesticide. The aim of this manipulation: to show that the pesticide is not persistent.

This is not acceptable. We must understand that the government's acceptance of this "expert" report could irreparably destroy the credibility of our scientific institutions.

More importantly, it will destroy the integrity of scientists who speak out in public interest. This is not merely some skirmish over the details of a government institution's report. It is a battle that will determine the idea of India.

First, we must understand that this is a battle of how intensely scientific debates are fought in the public sphere. The proponents of the pesticide-is-safe theory found it easy to debunk evidence because it was easy to debunk science.

And so, continue what I call the dialogues of the deaf. On the side of private interests is "established" science, which is well considered and easy to accept. On the side of the defenders of public science is knowledge that is challenged and contested.

In a country that remains more or less scientifically illiterate in terms of public discourse and policy, how will this battle of unequals ever be won?

Second, this battle is about defending the right against the wrong. Remember, in this case the institution defending the public interest, NIOH, is not a so-called ragtag non-governmental organisation. But what it found was against the "established" and "manufactured" truth.

Therefore, it had to be proved wrong: its methodology discredited, its findings disputed and its scientists sneered upon. As it is, scientists usually find it easy to draw comfort from the closed-in silence of their work-spaces.

Their silence is their acquiescence. In this rare case, the scientist became the public defender. If this report takes another victim, the next defender of public interests will find it even more difficult to stand up and be counted.

Third, it is a battle about the public sphere. Under current law, only a Central government institution can decide on banning a particular pesticide. Its committees decide in the public interest and their decisions are binding.

But they are not public or open to scrutiny. Compare this to the case of the soft drink fracas where another institution, considered much less credible in public gaze but much more open and, hence accountable, decided on an equally intense scientific question.

The committee of parliamentarians may have been much less equipped to decide on science, but it proved much more capable of defending public interests.

"Established" science vs public interest: is this then the way ahead? These experiments are about all of us. Remember, it is about nothing less than establishing the truth.