I wrote recently about attempts by an industry group to prevent publication of key papers on the risk of cancer among workers exposed to diesel exhaust. A mining industry coalition had obtained an order from a court in Louisiana, USA that restrained the study’s authors, most of whom are US government scientists, from publishing the study results for 90 days while the industry and a congressional committee reviewed the papers and the raw data. An industry lawyer also sent letters to several journals, including OEM, advising the editors not to publish papers from the diesel study. An editorial on these events and their implications for scientific communication has been published online and will appear in the April issue of OEM (1).

The situation changed this week with respect to the delayed papers. The US government agencies that sponsored the study had appealed the court’s order, and on 29 February a higher court stayed the original ruling, opening the way for the papers to be published (2, 3). More details of these events have been reported in Nature news (4). The public interest in knowing the results of this important study will be served and the IARC monograph meeting on the carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust scheduled for June will presumably go forward as planned.

While this is good news for these papers and the evaluation of diesel exhaust, there are still reasons to be concerned about the larger implications of the case. A lawsuit was used to delay the open publication of important scientific findings while parties with a financial interest were given time to go through the data. While the industry is entitled to draw their own conclusions from the data, there is no scientific or ethical reason that they should be able to do so before workers, the public and the scientific community.

References

1. Loomis D, Sim MR. Suppressing publication threatens scientific progress. Occup Environ Med 2012;69:229 doi:10.1136/oemed-2012-100740.

2. Attfield MD, Schlieff PL, Lubin JH et al. The diesel exhaust in miners study: a cohort mortality study with emphasis on lung cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 2012;104:1-15. DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djs035.

3. Silverman DT, Sarmanic CM, Lubin JH, et al. The diesel exhaust in miners study: a nested case-control study of lung cancer and diesel exhaust. J Natl Cancer Inst 2012;104:1-14. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djs034.

4. Tollefson J. Embattled scientists publish study linking (surprise) diesel exhaust and cancer. Nature News Blog. 2012. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/03/embattled-scientists-publish-miner-cancer-study.html

OEM recently received a letter from an attorney in the United States referring to an order of a US district court and warning us not to publish papers from a NIOSH/NCI study on the effects of diesel exhaust in a cohort of miners.  The letter’s author, Henry Chajet, is a Washington, DC, lawyer and lobbyist who has represented industry in challenging occupational health and safety regulations, and we have learned that he has sent similar letters to other journals in the UK and the US.

For OEM, the actual impact of the letter and the court’s order is minimal at this stage.  The papers in question have been submitted to other journals and it is questionable whether a US judge’s order would apply to the Journal as an entity based in the UK.  However, the broader implications of the court order and the industry’s tactics are cause for concern.

The judge’s order is a highly unusual instance of prior restraint of scientific publication.  It was issued in a lawsuit filed by the mining industry against the US government agencies that conducted the diesel study, which alleges that the study results are “inaccurate and faulty.”  The order requires the study’s authors to turn over materials related to the research to the industry and a committee of the US Congress and gives those groups 90 days to review them before the papers can be published.  The judge’s order is being appealed, but it’s likely that the papers will be held up for some time with further court filings and motions.   A substantial delay in publication of key results from the study could affect IARC’s planned re-evaluation of the carcinogenicity of diesel exhaust scheduled for June.

Ironically, Mr. Chajet has said that the purpose of challenging the diesel study was “to get the information and open the door and let the participants and the public see what the conclusions are based on the science ” (1), but the industry’s action may have exactly the opposite effect.  The public have a compelling interest in knowing the findings of this important study, which is not served by using the legal system to restrain publication of the key papers and the open discussion and debate that is sure to follow.

References

1. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/26/diesel-dangers-mining-companies-get-first-look-at-government-ca/

The Fiscal Year 2012 Budget released recently by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposes termination of funding for the Educational and Research Centers (ERCs) Program within the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), stating that the “intended goals of the program have been met.” The goals, according to the OMB, were to provide seed money for academic institutions to develop or expand occupational health and safety training programs for specialists practicing in the field, with the intention that the programs would become self-sustaining after 5 years.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) has posted on their website (http://www.acoem.org/Proposed_NIOSH_Budget_Cuts.aspx) a letter to members of the Appropriations Committee about the proposed cuts. The “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings” Report is located on the White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/TRS).

“Basic protections are still lacking” (Occup Environ Med 2010;67:361) cited several coal-mining tragedies earlier this year and addressed the concern that millions of workers worldwide continue to work under weak standards and lax enforcement. This year, China has reported over 60 mining accidents from explosions, fires, carbon monoxide poisoning, flooding, and cave-ins (China Mine Disaster Watch http://www.usmra.com/chinatable.htm). Many of the accidents occurred in illegal mines and in mines violating safety regulations.

Mine disasters in developed countries are no longer common; however, earlier this year 29 workers were killed in an explosion at a coalmine in West Virginia. This has been described as the worst mine disaster in the United States for the past four decades.

Currently, miners are trapped 2000 feet beneath the earth’s surface from a collapse of the San José Mine in Chile. All miners survived the collapse, but they remain trapped with little hope of rescue for the next three months.

Mr. Sebastián Piñera, the President of Chile, has fired high-ranking mining regulators and ordered a review of worker safety in Chile. Mining unions and employees describe the mine as having a history of violating safety regulations, including the lack of an escape route. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/world/americas/25chile.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th)

Other countries have experienced mine disasters this year as well. Most of these disasters have cited either violations of safety regulations or lack of safety features altogether.