Business Standard: National: Thursday,
May 19, 2016.
India has in
recent years emerged as the second largest globally in agricultural production
and the sixth largest in agricultural exports. “Along with this success comes
covert and insidious campaigns to tarnish India’s image especially in the
foreign media and internet. Unfortunately, such campaigns originate from unscrupulous
and overzealous elements in India’s public funded educational institutes,” says
Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) elaborating on an ongoing episode at the
Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), currently in a row over for
antinational slogans being made on its campus.
In 2014, a
few researchers at the JNU collected an undisclosed number of vegetable samples
from around Delhi, analysed them at the government funded laboratory in the JNU
using undisclosed testing methods. Without establishing vital specifics such as
limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantitation (LOQ), linear calibration,
confirmatory tests and without even keeping basic records such as log books,
chromatograms etc managed to fabricate a study and made public their study at a
conference held in San Francisco, USA (in August 2014) and subsequently in a
journal published from Europe (in November 2014).
The title of
study published in the US was ‘Health risk assessment of organochlorine
pesticide exposure through dietary intake of vegetables grown in the periurban
sites of Delhi, India’, while the study published in Europe was titled
‘Assessment of the concentration, distribution, and health risk of
organochlorine pesticides in Momordica charantia grown in Periurban region of Delhi,
India’.
These reports
alleged 100 percent contamination of Indian vegetables with 20 different
pesticides banned for use in India 20-30 years ago. “The unmistakable message
they sent out to the global community in the seminars and journals outside
India was that Indian farmers are using banned pesticides on vegetables and
importing and consuming them could involve health dangers. This should be
viewed seriously in context of the fact that India is the second largest
producer of vegetables in the world and one of the largest exporters of fresh
vegetables,” said CCFI.
A plain
reading of the JNU studies show that they are founded on fabricated and
falsified data. The CCFI, through its members, filed a series of applications
under Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to have the laboratory generated
raw data behind the studies published abroad. The JNU authorities have
repeatedly refused to provide the laboratory data despite precedent decisions
from the Central Information Commission (CIC) that the data generated during
the course of published work including that of PhD should be disclosed to the
public who seek to assess the scientific veracity. The matter has since been
appealed and the final appeal is pending before the CIC.
What is more
shocking is that the JNU has refused to reveal the laboratory data behind the
impugned studies published abroad to the Indian Council of Agricultural
Research (ICAR) that functions under the Minstry of Agriculture and Farmers
Welfare. In a formal communication sent to CCFI, the ICAR has openly termed the
JNU study as fabricated.
According to
All India Network Project on Pesticide Residues of India Agricultural Research
Institute (IARI), there is no sample of vegetable found in India with any
banned pesticides as mentioned in the JNU report. The question is if these
pesticides do not exist anywhere in the world for the last 25 to 30 years, how
can Indian farmers have access to such banned pesticides?
Initially,
the JNU cited an University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines not to disclose
the laboratory data behind the published studies. However, UGC has since
contradicted the stand taken by the JNU categorically stating that there is no
such restrictive guidelines.
What is
research misconduct, a new and emerging white collar crime? The Indian
Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, which functions under the
Ministry of Human Resources defines the term ‘research misconduct’ as follows:
“Research
misconduct or fraud in science refers to the fabrication, falsification,
plagiarism in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and
deliberate and dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in
carrying out research. It includes failure to follow established protocols if
this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to humans, other vertebrates
or environment. It shall also include facilitating of misconduct in research by
collusion or concealment of such actions by others and by any plan or
conspiracy or attempt to do any of these things.”
CCFI asserts
that the JNU scholars committed research fraud on several counts as captured in
this definition.
Many
economically advanced countries such as US, EU, Japan, and China have strong
legislations to investigate and punish scientists who commit research fraud. A
scientist was given a hefty fine of $7.2 million and 57 months imprisonment in
the USA by the Office of research Integrity (US-ORI) in 2015 following the research
misconduct. CCFI is of the opinion that the Central government should consider
coming out with similar legislation in India.
Indian
agriculture, which ranks second in production and sixth in agri exports
globally, can ill afford fabricated and malicious publications in foreign
journals. Incidences of research misconducts, such as JNU, puts unnecessary
doubts in the minds of people about the safety of Indian agricultural
commodities and affects the exports of agriculture products from the country.
The
government will have to ensure that the public-funded institutes are held
accountable for malpractices and performances are measured on the quantity
& quality of their research output. Scientists committing fraud is termed
as scientific misconduct, but given the ramification of such studies, time may
have arrived to make it a criminal fraud as misconduct degrades trust in
science and is potentially more dangerous causing real-world harm.
.JPG)
.JPG)
