My Letter to NC Museum of Natural Sciences' Director

My discussion with the Museum of Natural Sciences about their Biotechnology Day continues with the communication below that I sent to Dr. Betsy Bennett, the Museum’s director. Unfortunately, I called her Ms. Bennett in the email, instead of Dr. Bennett. This error occurred because the Museum’s website did not identify her as a doctor, but a “Friend of the Museum” mentioned her title in a comment on my blog post: Please Act – NC Museum of Natural Sciences Ignores Its Mission and Promotes GMO Food and Big Pharma.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to contact the Museum about your concerns, there is still plenty of time. I know that for many people registering concerns with a government agency can be intimidating, but they are a government agency and it is part of their job to receive and respond to public feedback. The Museum is a public agency receiving public money via monetary appropriations from our state’s General Assembly.

I am hopeful that Dr. Bennett will take the letter I sent below with the seriousness that I intend. It is through hope and taking action that together we can make a difference. Thank you for reading.

 

Dear Ms. Bennett:

As a long-time visitor to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, I want you to know how much I appreciate the Natural Science programs that the Museum presents. The year-round and traveling exhibits are excellent, as are the speakers, and staff members have been overwhelmingly wonderful in their education efforts. Unfortunately, I do have concerns regarding the Museum’s Biotechnology Day, and I have been in a lengthy discussion with Dr. David Kroll. My concerns are outlined in the emails below. I am writing to you to formally register my opposition to Biotechnology Day, to urge the Museum to stop holding the event and to encourage your staff to be more open to the public’s concerns.

Rather than repeat my Biotech Day objections and recommendations in their entirety (they are included in the email chain below), I want to present concerns regarding my interactions with Dr. Kroll. During these interactions I raised serious concerns and recommendations which have gone largely unaddressed. In addition, Dr. Kroll tried to creatively paint a scenario where modern Biotechnology is complementary to Natural Science, which I had to dispel by using the Museum’s own contributor’s definitions of Biotechnology. When faced with this information, Dr. Kroll abruptly ended the conversation with the following statement:

As you noted in your July 24 email that you are "a former state government employee who has interacted highly with the public," I'm sure you will appreciate that our workload includes responsibilities to the 911,000 visitors who have come through our doors over the last 12 months as well as to our diverse collection of stakeholders. I'm certain you will agree that several of us at the Museum have expended an inordinate amount of effort in responding to your individual inquiries. As such, we wish you well in your endeavors and consider this matter now closed.

This response is highly offensive to all citizens. Citizens should be taking active roles in their communities and their governments, with the expectation that constructive dialog will continue and that citizens will not be mocked, misled and dismissed for pointing out information even if it undermines an agency’s position. The evidence supporting these concerns is based in my email exchanges with Dr. Krolll, not just the conversation-ending paragraph above.

For ten years I was a state government employee at an environmental agency. In that role I was often in the heart of some very heated and high profile environmental cases, and I have had an exceptional amount of public interaction with both emotional and fact-based citizens. It has always been my goal to see each interaction to an amicable conclusion when possible. Given that my conversation with Dr. Kroll was rational, sensible and factual, I was highly disappointed when he ended our communication.

In addition, I asked Dr. Kroll for all emails, notes, memos or other communications related to our correspondence and he responded that there were none. I find this hard to believe given that he stated that “several of us at the Museum have expended an inordinate amount of effort in responding to your individual inquiries.” If several people have in fact “expended an inordinate amount of effort” then surely there must be additional correspondence. If not, then that leads me to the potential conclusion that my emails have caused an inordinate number of lengthy verbal meetings with several staff members, resulting in no documentation, which would be surprising in this electronic age. Accordingly, I ask that the Museum check again to see if there is any other staff documentation regarding Dr. Kroll’s and my email discussion. I am interested in even the smallest of electronic communications and ask that they be forwarded.

It is offensive that Dr. Kroll believes that he and other staff have spent an inordinate amount of time responding to my concerns. That is absurd, given the length of his responses to my concerns and the fact that he ignored most of the points for which I requested his response. What is even more offensive, though, is the amount of time I have spent dispelling the misinformation presented by Dr. Kroll and finding constructive information to present to him. A citizen should not have to work this hard to ensure that facts are the basis for discussion with your agency in an effort to stop it from holding an event that is antagonistic to its very name and mission.

Finally, it still highly bothers me that Dr. Kroll believes that the presentations made at the Museum were ethical. Many of the corporate presenters have been legally penalized for their lack of ethics. Take this August 2012 bribery case regarding Biotech Day exhibitor Pfizer, where overseas doctors were bribed to increase sales: Pfizer Settles US Charges of Overseas Bribery. I will not go into the number of Biotech Pharmaceutical products that were marketed using false information, causing significant injury and death. I could list the legal charges and settlements worldwide against a number of the Museum’s contributors, but that is an exorbitant burden that I will not undertake.

I will provide one more example. Monsanto, another Biotech Day contributor, falls under a different line of horrific ethics. Monsanto manipulates the legal system to penalize and bankrupt small farmers when their non-Monsanto, non-GMO crops are cross pollinated by Monsanto’s GMO crops, causing patent infringement. This type of action gained notoriety in the legal case brought by Monsanto in Monsanto vs Schmeiser. Monsanto’s bullying and devastating efforts have become such a threat that a number of small and organic farmers are filing suit against Monsanto so that they hopefully will be protected from Monsanto’s patent infringement lawsuits. See Briefs Filed to Stop Monsanto's Patent Infringement War Against Family Farmers. These farmers want no part of Monsanto or its GMO crops, and it is unbelievable that legal action is required to keep them safe. Based on such encroaching, strangling companies like Pfizer, Monsanto, I am unable to see how many presentations or exhibits could possibly be considered ethical.

 I would very much like to meet with you, Dr. Kroll and any other staff to learn more details regarding why the Museum is rejecting my concerns. Please contact me via email at lrcombs@yahoo.com or by phone at to set up an appointment.

Thank you for your consideration of my concerns.

Sincerely,

Laura Combs

Comments

[denise souza]

Keep fighting Laura! I sent an email. I am also going to add this link to my FB and tell them them can get view my letter on the blog page of my website.

[Peter Calingaert]

I approve heartily of your goal, but doubt whether writing to the museum director will be as effective as a letter to the editors of the Raleigh News & Observer and of the Independent Weekly. Both papers have a history of pointing out conflicts of interest, and one of them might even assign a reporter to the issue. Inasmuch as the director received an Ed.D. from the Curry School of Education of the University of Virginia in 1989, it would be better to refer to her only as "Dr." and never as "Ms.".

[Jim Easter]

From the museum's program listing, it seems pretty clear that Biotechnology Day was a well conceived and executed effort at science education. The public would be poorer if it had not been held, and it is not reasonable to ask that it be canceled simply because you have objections to some of the presenters. Rather than demand that anyone you disagree with not be heard, why not use the occasion to speak out yourself? Pass out leaflets on Monsanto, or collect signatures on petitions for food labeling legislation; don't try to shut down all discussion of topics you think should be forbidden. An educated democracy works when we spread light, not when we insist on darkness.

[Laura Combs]

Thank you all for reading and for your comments. For what it is worth, which probably isn't much, I think the Museum is the wrong location for Biotechnology Day. With NC having an official Biotechnology Center, a venue such as this is appropriate as opposed to a Museum of Natural Science. If the event were held there I never would have said a peep about anything.

[Eric Bowen]

In general, I agree that it is dangerous for our public institutions to provide too much support/free advertising to organizations like Monsanto. The brute force yield-centric approach that they generally promote is choking our streams and makes our entire food system vulnerable (eg. summers of 2011 & 2012 across the plains). I think Jim has a really good point that learning is always a good thing, though I think it would be best if a third party (non-biased if such a thing exists) could be the one offering the educational programming.

However, calling Dr. Kroll out into public on this issue seems counter-productive. You could probably gain a lot of allies in the fight for labeling GMOs and without bringing this drawn-out exchange into public. To me, making this exchange public makes you appear petty and perhaps even vindictive, which sucks because I think we have a lot in common.
Best,
-Eric

[Lalsox]

"...It has always been my goal to see each interaction to an amicable conclusion when possible...."

It would seem that your idea of an "amicable conclusion" is one where you get your way and everyone agrees with you. In that light, I am not at all surprised that the folks from the Museum would see this as a dead-end communication and let it go.

Your sticking point seems to be with the "biotech" aspect, and your ideas that Natural Sciences are limited to things that are essentially un-messed-around-with. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, and biotech is essential, beneficial, and integral to the lives of many, many people. You certainly are entitled to your own objections, but it is not up to you to dictate the programming of content of the institution when the event is so clearly under the umbrella of science, public outreach, and education.

[Laura Combs]

Thanks for your thoughts, Eric. I was hoping that I would be able to post that we had a constructive discussion and end the story, but when it was abruptly terminated that wasn't possible. With the players in this episode, my one voice alone isn't enough, so I went public. Right or wrong is hard to say, but it is difficult to allow Monsanto and others in unchallenged and to be legitimized as natural science. There are plenty of private places for them to celebrate their work, like the NC Center for Biotechnology, which is about 10 miles away.

[Eric Bowen]

Regardless of their business practices and the application of their technology, Monsanto uses natural science to develop their products. Genes get scrambled all the time and humans have been manipulating that process for millennia. Biology and genetics are by definition a natural science (as opposed to a social sciences). But just because something has the word "natural" doesn't somehow legitimize it.

I really think Jim had the right idea, Biotech day seems like it would have been a great opportunity to educate the public on the pitfalls of thinking biotech seeds and drugs are "the solution." Ecological/systems thinking approaches to the same problems that biotech tries to solve provide more permanent solutions. This inside the box, brute-force man vs. nature approach is the biggest reason I started my (currently languishing) blog, RethinkAg.

On a side note (this is the part where I shamelessly promote my pet issue), have you heard of integrated crop-livestock systems? Basically it's a system of pasture-based crop production that sustained European civilizations for 1000 years or so. Without animals, ecosystems are vulnerable and tend toward desertification (gradually happening across the nation's monoculture corn belt). Reintegrating animals can dramatically improve soil and even sustain crop production without any outside fertilizer (except lime and some micronutrients here in Southern Ultisols).
Cheers,
-Eric

[Laura Combs]

Hi Eric. I hear what you and Jim are saying about using Biotech Day to communicate both the advantages and threats of biotechnology. It certainly has its advantages in some sectors, and I am not anti-biotechnology as a whole. It is some of the corporate players that cause me concern. There has to be a line somewhere regarding when these corporations are allowed to participate and when they aren't. What I don't get, though, involves the definition of natural science v. applied science and where does biotechnology fit. Take this example. Why is biotechnology not under Duke University's Natural Sciences Department? Instead it is placed in Duke's School of Engineering. NC State's biotechnology programs are placed in its engineering department as well. My understanding is that biotechnology is an applied science, which is different from a natural science, which would explain why it is not treated as a natural science by the universities. Appreciate any thoughts on that. Thank you.

Regarding integrated crop-livestock systems, I am no farmer, but Joel Salatin immediately comes to mind and I know several farmers who use that type of system. I see that you are using it too - just went to your languishing blog. Very nice.

[Hart Matthews]

Wait, are people suggesting that Biotech Days was about both the advantages and the threats of biotechnology? Because it wasn't my impression that the word, "threats," was on the program.

Or are folks just suggesting that Laura keep her mouth shut about one of the most destructive forces on this planet (Monsanto) being featured in a publicly funded venue? I think what you see is Laura leveraging something more than leaflets to speak her mind. (And a blithe assumption that is, to suggest that she would be allowed to pass out anti-Monsanto leaflets for very long outside Biotech Days.)

I agree with Laura that biotechnology is clearly not a natural science. It is a technology, a tool *derived* from various sciences, applied in an unnatural way and used widely to develop profits for some very large companies, among other things. The hubris with which it is applied on the industrial front can be quite breathtaking.

Biotechnology is also clearly not necessary for the survival of human life, as one poster suggests. If it were so, human life would never have been around long enough to develop the technology to fiddle around with genetics.

And, yes, nice product placement, Eric! Was just reading about integrated crop-livestock systems yesterday.