The Oakland, California based U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) has sent letters to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Committees, and to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), requesting an investigation of a possible cover up for Monsanto, and whether USDA scientists are being harassed when their work runs counter to the interests of the agrichemical industry.

Last week, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) alleged that scientists within the USDA are subjected to management pressure and retaliation for research threatening agribusiness interests.

PEER executive director Jeff Ruch said that his group has received reports concerning USDA scientists ordered to retract studies, water down findings, remove their name from authorship and endure long indefinite delays in approving publication of papers that may be controversial.

Moreover, scientists who are targeted by industry complaints find themselves subjected to disruptive investigations, disapprovals of formerly routine requests, disciplinary actions over petty matters and intimidation from supervisors focused on pleasing “stakeholders.”

“A largely invisible and toothless Scientific Integrity Policy enables corporate influence over critical USDA scientific research decisions,” Ruch said, noting the USDA policy promises a website to display case-specific and other information but no such site exists.

“USDA’s scientific integrity program is like a black hole, allowing no information to escape and no light to penetrate,” Ruch said.

“If true, this is a major scandal at USDA,” said Gary Ruskin of USRTK.  “It is not the proper role of the USDA to engage in a cover up for Monsanto or other agrichemical companies. It is intolerable that the agribusiness and agrichemical should be able to interfere with USDA scientists and their work.  Those scientists work for the public, not Monsanto nor the agrichemical industry.  They must be fully insulated from the political pressure of the agribusiness and agrichemical industries.  It is crucial to the public interest that they do their work without industry harassment or obstruction. The integrity of the USDA is at stake.”

The letters urged the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and the USDA Inspector General to conduct full and thorough investigations into corporate interference with USDA scientists, to publicly release any evidence of industry interference with USDA scientists, and to ensure that such interference never happens again.

In January, U.S. Right to Know released a report – titled Seedy Business — on the chemical and food industry’s $100 million campaign to keep consumers in the dark about genetically engineered food: how they manipulated the media, public opinion, science and politics.