Dioxin Dorms Blog :: SUNY New Paltz

Today’s blog is a reprint. The IBT Labs scandal has faded into distant history, but is significant in any discussion of PCBs. To sum up, Monsanto (the sole US manufacturer of PCBs) hired a product safety testing lab to produce fraudulent “scientific” studies claiming that PCBs are safe. There is much, much more to this blight on American science, and we have extensive coverage at Planet Waves — but for today, let’s just leave it at PCBs

From Conspiracy of Silence by Eric Francis

AT THIS POINT, the [PCB] crisis entered its darkest hour. In order to maintain its 1971 position that “PCBs are not and cannot be classified as highly toxic,” Monsanto engaged Industrial Bio-Test Labs of Northbrook, Illinois, to do safety studies on its Aroclor PCB products. Seven years later, IBT Labs would be at the center of one of the most far-reaching scandals in modern science, as thousands of its studies were revealed through EPA and FDA investigations to be fraudulent or grossly inadequate. One of IBT’s top executives was Dr. Paul Wright, a Monsanto toxicologist who took a job at IBT Labs in part to supervise the PCB tests, and then returned to Monsanto. Wright was eventually convicted of multiple counts of fraud in one of the longest criminal trials in U. S. history — with his legal fees paid by Monsanto.

While fraud on the PCB tests was not raised in the IBT trial, it is strongly suggested by memos and letters that came to light in later civil lawsuits. Several of these show how, at Monsanto’s request, IBT Labs customized its studies. “I think we are surprised (and disappointed?) at the apparent toxicity at the levels studied,” Monsanto’s Elmer Wheeler wrote in March 1970 to IBT president Joseph Calandra. “I doubt that there is any explanation for this but I do think that we might exchange some new thoughts.”

In a letter to IBT Labs two months later commenting on a set of PCB test results, Wheeler wrote, “We would hope that we might find a higher ‘no effect’ level with this sample as compared to the previous work.”

In later years, Monsanto’s requests would become even more blatant. “In two instances, the previous conclusion of ’slightly tumorigenic’ was changed to ‘non-carcinogenic,’” Monsanto wrote in July 1975. “The latter phrase is preferable. May we request that the Aroclor 1254 report be amended to say ‘does not appear to be carcinogenic.’”

Two weeks later, Calandra responded: “We will amend our statement in the last paragraph on page 2 of the Aroclor 1254 report to read, ‘does not appear to be carcinogenic’ in place of ’slightly tumorigenic’ as requested.” Testimony about the IBT Labs scandal in a Texas lawsuit against Monsanto indicates that IBT was aware that PCBs caused extremely high numbers of tumors in test rats, with 82 percent developing tumors when fed Aroclor 1254 at 10 parts per million and 100 percent at 100 parts per million. Yet with a stroke of a pen, IBT Labs certified PCBs a noncarcinogen.

Working behind the scenes of such scientific miracles was Paul Wright. In July 1976, after returning to Monsanto, he was given a $1,000 award for “forestalling EPA’s promulgation of unrealistic regulations to limit discharges of polychlorinated biphenyls.” A year later, IBT Labs was found out, and Wright, Calandra, and another IBT exec were eventually convicted of federal fraud charges.

The first proposal for a total ban on PCBs was made by Representative William Fitz Ryan (D-N.Y.) in 1970. But partly due to the IBT tests, the substance stayed on the market until the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Before the lid clamped down, industry continued to minimize reports of PCB toxicity. “The low order of toxicity to man is supported by several decades experience in the U.S. electrical industry,” GE wrote the EPA in November 1973, urging the agency not to regulate PCBs. In its comments, Monsanto stated that “PCB has always been considered less hazardous than many other chemicals in everyday use.”

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