I promise this will be my only contribution to this growing flame fest.
Gary Banowetz writes:
>The issue here remains the safety of BST and how consumers will make
>informed decisions on whether or not to purchase milk from BST-Treated
>animals. The points you and Lara raise amount to little more than
>personal innuendos on Dr. Bauman and the scientific community in general.
And certainly the scientific community is beyond scrutiny, eh? Most
research scientists I know (not many, but at least one "world renown"),
are frequently concerned with funding. In fact, a large part of their job
seems to involve fund-raising of one kind or another. You don't honestly
believe that a scientist's point of view has no effect on research results, do
you?
Please keep in mind that many of us are concerned about BST due to
philosophical reasons involving appropriate technology, societal concerns
and economics. I, for one, do not oppose it for food safety reasons.
>I've been a research scientist myself for 15 years and have done research
>funded by industry.
Well, that certainly helps explain your point of view.
> Science isn't a process of buying and selling
>scientists and their results.
Many people have drawn different conclusions than you have. I agree that it
shouldn't be.
> I have never been bought, and the source of
>my funding never has, and never will affect the data the result from the
>studies.
That may be true, and may be true in the case of Dr. Bauman. If so, hip
hip hooray for the lot of you. But, can't you see that industry funding
of scientific research has the appearance of a conflict of interest? Now,
if the funding were handled via some kind of "double blind" system, perhaps
both scientists and industry would enjoy greater public credibility.
--Robert