{"id":6731,"date":"2017-08-09T14:12:18","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T19:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=6731"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:01:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:01:59","slug":"doursons-go-to-journal-for-publishing-his-industry-funded-papers-is-well-also-industry-funded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/08\/09\/doursons-go-to-journal-for-publishing-his-industry-funded-papers-is-well-also-industry-funded\/","title":{"rendered":"Dourson\u2019s go-to journal for publishing his industry-funded papers is, well, also industry-funded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n<p><em>[My colleague Ryan O\u2019Connell assisted in the research described in this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>[Use <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/tag\/dourson\/\">this link <\/a>to see all of our posts on Dourson.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/07\/24\/epa-toxics-nominee-has-been-paid-by-dozens-of-companies-to-work-on-dozens-of-chemicals\/\">recent post <\/a>I noted our initial findings from a review of published papers of Michael Dourson, the Trump Administration\u2019s nominee to head the office at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) charged with implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).\u00a0 That review has shown that Dourson has been paid by dozens of companies and trade associations for work on dozens of their chemicals \u2013 including many of the same chemicals he will be charged with reviewing and regulating should he be confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Our review is uncovering additional curious features of Dourson\u2019s published papers.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We have looked at all papers listed on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/\">PubMed<\/a> on which he was an author published since 1995 \u2013 the year Dourson left EPA and started his consulting firm, Toxicology Excellence in Risk Assessment (TERA).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6739 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/Dourson-papers-by-journal.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"481\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/Dourson-papers-by-journal.png 481w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/Dourson-papers-by-journal-300x226.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/Dourson-papers-by-journal-20x15.png 20w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 481px) 100vw, 481px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are 66 such papers.\u00a0 The chart here shows the number of papers he published in various journals.\u00a0 What is remarkable is that well over half of them \u2013 37 \u2013 were published in a single journal: \u00a0<em>Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology<\/em>.\u00a0 The journal with the next largest number ran only five of his papers.<\/p>\n<p><em>Regulatory Toxicology an<\/em><em>d Pharmacology<\/em>, it turns out, has a longstanding reputation of being the go-to journal for both tobacco and chemical industry-friendly paper publishing.\u00a0 The journal has been the subject of numerous expos\u00e9s over the past 15 years regarding its close ties to the chemical and tobacco industries.\u00a0 Here are some of them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/2016\/02\/18\/19307\/brokers-junk-science\">Science for Sale: Brokers of junk science?<\/a>\u201d Center for Public Integrity, February 19, 2016. [This article also discusses the close ties to industry of a second journal, <em>Critical Reviews in Toxicology<\/em>.\u00a0 Two more of Dourson\u2019s papers were published in this journal.]<\/li>\n<li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2016\/05\/low-tar-cigarettes\/481116\/\">Contesting the Science of Smoking<\/a>,\u201d David Heath, <em>The Atlantic<\/em>, May 4, 2016.<\/li>\n<li>David Michaels (2008) <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doubt_Is_Their_Product\"><em>Doubt is Their Product:<\/em> <em>How the Industry\u2019s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health<\/em><\/a>, Oxford University Press, pp. 53-54.<\/li>\n<li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/psmag.com\/news\/inside-the-academic-journal-that-corporations-love\">Inside the Academic Journal that Corporations Love<\/a>,\u201d Paul D. Thacker, <em>Pacific Standard Magazine<\/em>, March 28, 2017.<\/li>\n<li>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1179\/oeh.2003.9.4.386\">Correspondence about Publication Ethics and Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology<\/a>,\u201d <em>International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health<\/em>, 9:4, 386-391, 2003.<\/li>\n<li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/cspinet.org\/new\/200211191.html\">Scientific Journal Compromised by Industry Ties: Tobacco, Chemical, &amp; Drug Companies\u2019 Funding Goes Undisclosed, Say Critics<\/a>,\u201d Center for Science in the Public Interest, November 19, 2002.\n<ul>\n<li>Associated <a href=\"https:\/\/cspinet.org\/sites\/default\/files\/attachment\/final_letter_academic_press_rtp.pdf\">letter from 45 academic scientists <\/a>regarding the journal\u2019s conflicts of interest and failure to require their disclosure. [In 2003, the journal finally instituted a disclosure policy for papers it publishes \u2013 which is part of how we were able to identify the industry funding sources for so many of Dourson\u2019s papers.]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology<\/em> is sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isrtp.org\/\">The International Society of Regulatory Toxicology &amp; Pharmacology<\/a> (ISRTP), which sounds like a professional society.\u00a0 It hands out annual achievement awards (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.isrtp.org\/nonmembers\/intl_achievement_award_2015.htm\">Dourson got one in 2009<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>My effort to see who funds ISRTP took some interesting twists.\u00a0 On its website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isrtp.org\/sponsors.htm\">ISRTP only has this to say about its sponsors<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cSponsors to be announced soon.\u201d\u00a0 This struck me as odd for a society that dates back to at least 2003.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, however, the Internet is archived, and this same page is available for earlier points in time using the glorious <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/\">Internet Archive Wayback Machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what that <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060927194255\/http:\/www.isrtp.org\/sponsors.htm\">page looked like up until September 2006<\/a>:<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060927194255\/http:\/www.isrtp.org\/sponsors.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6734 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/ISRTP-sponsors.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"799\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/ISRTP-sponsors.jpg 799w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/ISRTP-sponsors-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/ISRTP-sponsors-768x519.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/2017\/08\/ISRTP-sponsors-20x14.jpg 20w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An impressive list, to say the least \u2013 so why is it now hidden from public view?<\/p>\n<p>For more on ISRTP and its journal, including their role in a 2008 Congressional investigation involving bisphenol A, see <a href=\"http:\/\/powerbase.info\/index.php\/Regulatory_Toxicology_and_Pharmacology#Congressional_investigation_over_bisphenol_A\">this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To bring this back to Michael Dourson, I think my title says it all:\u00a0 Dourson\u2019s go-to journal for publishing his industry-funded papers is, well, also industry-funded.<\/p>\n<p>In my next post, I\u2019ll probe a little deeper into Dourson and <em>Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. [My colleague Ryan O\u2019Connell assisted in the research described in this post.] [Use this link to see all of our posts on Dourson.] In a recent post I noted our initial findings from a review of published papers of Michael Dourson, the Trump Administration\u2019s nominee to head the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,5009,56093,114108],"tags":[91812],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-health-science","category-industry-influence","category-tsca","tag-dourson"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12802,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions\/12802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}