Peter Infante, a frequently partisan, paid expert witness for the Lawsuit Industry, recently published a “commentary” in the red journal, the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, about the evils of scientists with economic interests commenting upon the cancer causation pronouncements of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Peter F. Infante, Ronald Melnick, James Huff & Harri Vainio, “Commentary: IARC Monographs Program and public health under siege by corporate interests,” 61 Am. J. Indus. Med. 277 (2018). Infante’s rant goes beyond calling out scientists with economic interests on IARC working groups; Infante would silence all criticism of IARC pronouncements by anyone, including scientists, who has an economic interest in the outcome of a scientific debate. Infante points to manufacturing industry’s efforts to “discredit” recent IARC pronouncements on glyphosate and red meat, by which he means that there were scientists who had the temerity to question IARC’s processes and conclusions.
Apparently, Infante did not think his bias was showing or would be detected. He and his co-authors invoke militaristic metaphors to claim that the IARC’s monograph program, and indeed all of public health, is “under siege by corporate interests.” A farcical commentary at that, coming from such stalwarts of the Lawsuit Industry. Infante lists his contact information as “Peter F. Infante Consulting, LLC, Falls Church, Virginia,” and co-author Ronald Melnick can be found at “Ronald Melnick Consulting, LLC, North Logan, Utah.” A search on Peter Infante in Westlaw yields 141 hits, all on the plaintiffs’ side of health effects disputes; he is clearly no stranger to the world of litigation. Melnick is, to be sure, harder to find, but he does show up as a signatory on Raphael Metzger’s supposed amicus briefs, filed by Metzger’s litigation front organization, Council for Education and Research on Toxics.1
Of the commentary’s authors, only James Huff, of “James Huff Consulting, Durham, North Carolina,” disclosed a connection with litigation, as a consultant to plaintiffs on animal toxicology of glyphosate. Huff’s apparent transparency clouded up when it came to disclosing how much he has been compensated for his consulting activities for claimants in glyphosate litigation. In the very next breath, in unison, the authors announce unabashedly that “[a]ll authors report no conflicts of interest.” Infante at 280.
Of course, reporting “no conflicts of interest” does not mean that the authors have no conflicts of interest, financial, positional, and idealogical. Their statement simply means that they have not reported any conflicts, through inadvertence, willfulness, or blindness. The authors, and the journal, are obviously content to mislead their readership by not-so-clever dodges.
The clumsiness of the authors’ inability to appreciate their very own conflicts infects their substantive claims in this commentary. These “consultants” tell us solemnly that IARC “[m]eetings are openly transparent and members are vetted for conflicts of interest.” Infante at 277. Working group members, however, are vetted but only for manufacturing industry conflicts, not for litigation industry conflicts or for motivational conflicts, such as advancing their own research agendas. Not many scientists have a research agenda to show that chemicals do not cause cancer.
At the end of this charade, the journal provides additional disclosures [sic]. As for “Ethics and Approval Consent,” we are met with a bold “Not Applicable.” Indeed; ethics need not apply. Perhaps, the American Journal of Industrial Medicine is beyond good and evil. The journal’s “Editor of Record,” Steven B. Markowitz “declares that he has no conflict of interest in the review and publication decision regarding this article.” This is, of course, the same Markowitz who testifies frequently for the Lawsuit Industry, without typically disclosing this conflict on his own publications.
This commentary is yet another brushback pitch, which tries to chill manufacturing industry and scientists from criticizing the work of agencies, such as IARC, captured by lawsuit industry consultants. No one should be fooled other than Mother Jones.
1See, e.g., Ramos v. Brenntag Specialties, Inc., 372 P.3d 200 (Calif. 2016) (where plaintiff was represented by Metzger, and where CERT filed an amicus brief by the usual suspects, plaintiffs’ expert witnesses, including Melnick).
