The National Academy of Sciences had not even published its new report on the safety of genetically modified crops when opponents of transgenic technology — including one congressman, Democrat Dennis Kucinich of Ohio — were moving to try and ensure that its contents were discounted by the public and the news media.

The study provides a balanced and thoughtful contribution to the public debate that is unfolding in the United States on genetically modified foods (see page 693). While concluding that there is currently no evidence that the class of these foods that it considered — those that are genetically modified to protect them from pests — pose any special risk to the public, it outlines a number of steps the US government could take to improve their regulation.

However, the value that such a study might have in informing the general public about the scientific issues at stake was somewhat diluted by the energetic efforts of anti-genetics campaigners and congressman Kucinich to discredit the process that produced it. These efforts are best summarized in the words of Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, a pressure group in Washington: he dismissed the academy's work as "paid-for science".

The allegation that studies conducted by groups of scientists are corrupted by researchers' conflicts of interest is not a new one, least of all for the academy. Environmental groups have for years alleged that academy panels are rigged, since panel members are academics who invariably have financial ties with the government agencies and industrial corporations that fund most of the work in their disciplines.

In the case of the latest study, however, the allegation seems threadbare. It is said that four of the eight practising academics on the study panel are in receipt of research funds from the agricultural biotechnology industry. But it is hard to see how this could be otherwise, unless the critics expect the academy to select scientists who have worked for years in agricultural biotechnology without getting funds from the industry.

Kimbrell also says that the National Academy of Sciences is clearly open to corporate influence because it accepts corporate donations to its endowment fund. But given the diversity of donors, the idea that any corporation influences National Research Council staff or panels by contributing to this fund is exceedingly far-fetched.

And the critics claim the study is flawed because its original staff director, Michael Phillips, left after six months to work for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Phillips' career move probably made him a lot of money, but against the backdrop of Washington's many revolving doors, it hardly constitutes a major scandal.

This particular study was paid for, to the tune of about $250,000, by the academy itself, in an effort to infuse some science into an important public debate. It was conducted under rules devised by the academy's members, comprising the United States' most distinguished scientists. Perhaps those who claim this process is corrupt, and call for its output to be rejected, do so because they lack the arguments or the ammunition to attack the study on its merits.