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Author Topic: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study  (Read 6795 times)

troutbreath

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Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« on: July 27, 2011, 09:07:48 AM »

Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
  By Margaret Munro, Postmedia NewsJuly 27, 2011 8:22 AM
 
 The fin of a sockeye salmon taken at Roderick-Haig Brown Regional Park during the sockeye run in October 2010. Top bureaucrats in Ottawa have muzzled a leading fisheries scientist whose discovery could help explain why salmon stocks have been crashing off Canada's West Coast, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.
Photograph by: Marlies Jordan, Special to The SunVANCOUVER — Top bureaucrats in Ottawa have muzzled a leading fisheries scientist whose discovery could help explain why salmon stocks have been crashing off Canada's West Coast, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.


The documents show the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister's Office, stopped Kristi Miller from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.


Science, one of the world's top research journals, published Miller's findings in January. The journal considered the work so significant it notified "over 7,400" journalists worldwide about Miller's "Suffering Salmon" study.


Science told Miller to "please feel free to speak with journalists." It advised reporters to contact Diane Lake, a media officer with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver, "to set up interviews with Dr. Miller."


Miller heads a $6-million salmon-genetics project at the federal Pacific Biological Station on Vancouver Island.


The documents show major media outlets were soon lining up to speak with Miller, but the Privy Council Office said no to the interviews.


The Privy Council Office also nixed a Fisheries Department news release about Miller's study, saying the release "was not very good, focused on salmon dying and not on the new science aspect," according to documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act.


Miller is still not allowed to speak publicly about her discovery, and the Privy Council Office and Fisheries Department defend the way she has been silenced.


But observers say it is indefensible and more evidence of the way the government is undermining its scientists.


"There is no question in my mind it's muzzling," said Jeffrey Hutchings, a senior fisheries scientist at Halifax's Dalhousie University.


"When the lead author of a paper in Science is not permitted to speak about her work, that is suppression," he said. "There is simply no ifs, ands or buts about that."


The Harper government has tightened the leash on federal scientists, whose work is financed by taxpayers and is often of significant public interest — be it about fish stocks, air pollution or food safety.


In one high-profile case reported by Postmedia News last year, Natural Resources Canada scientist Scott Dallimore had to wait for "pre-clearance" from political staff in the minister's office in Ottawa to speak about a study on a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada at the end of the last ice age.


Researchers, who used to be free to discuss their science, are now required to follow a process that includes "media lines" approved by communications officers, strategists and ministerial staff in Ottawa. They vet media requests, demand reporters' questions in advance and decide when and if researchers can give interviews.


Environment Canada now even has media officers in Ottawa tape-recording the interviews scientists are allowed to give.


Yet transparency as well as open communication and discussion are essential to science, Hutchings said, and Ottawa's excessive control over communication is "really poisoning the science environment within government."


"An iron curtain has been draped over communication of science in the last five to six years," he said.


The Privy Council Office and the Fisheries Department said Miller has not been permitted to discuss her work because of the Cohen Commission, a judicial inquiry created by the prime minister to look into declines of the famed Fraser River sockeye salmon. She is expected to appear before the commission in late August.


The Privy Council Office has "management responsibility" for the commission and decided Miller should not give media interviews about her study because of the ongoing inquiry, said PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet.


"Fisheries and Oceans Canada is conscious of the requirement to ensure that our conduct does not influence, and is not perceived to be attempting to influence, the evidence or course of the inquiry," department spokeswoman Melanie Carkner, said in a written statement.


Hutchings doesn't buy it, saying he finds it "inconceivable that the Cohen Commission would have viewed the communication of brand new scientific information as somehow interfering with its proceedings."


To Hutchings, the muzzling of Miller is "all about control — controlling the message and controlling communication."


The government released 762 pages of documents relating to the Miller study to Postmedia News. Many passages and pages were blacked out before they were released.


The documents give a glimpse of the way media strategists, communication specialists and officials control and script what government scientists say — or, in Miller's case, do not say —about their research.


The documents show the Fisheries Department wanted to publicize Miller's study, which raises the spectre of a mysterious virus killing huge numbers of Fraser River salmon before they reach their spawning grounds.


In November, two months before Miller's findings were published in Science, Fisheries Department communications staff started preparing "media lines."


The lines said Miller's findings "demonstrate unequivocally that salmon are entering the river in a compromised state and that survivorship can be predicted based on gene expression more than 200 kilometres before salmon reach the river."


Miller's team has not yet identified a culprit, but her Science study said one possibility was a virus associated with leukemia, which can be transmitted from fish to fish.


Reporters from Postmedia News, CBC and many other media, including Time Magazine, asked to speak with Miller after receiving the Jan. 9 notice from Science.


The documents show DFO communications staff firing off a series of "URGENT" emails as they tried to get clearance from Ottawa for Miller's "media lines" and the OK for her to speak with reporters.


They eventually got approval from DFO's deputy minister and the federal fisheries minister's office but then had to go "to PCO for sign off," the documents say.


"You need to write a note for hot-button approval," Rhonda Walker-Sisttie, director of DFO public affairs and strategic communications in Ottawa, told the Vancouver communications branch by email, advising them to use the "PCO template for media requests."


As the reporters' deadlines loomed, Terence Davis, DFO's Pacific regional director of communications, implored Ottawa to clear Miller to talk.


"If we are unable to set up a technical briefing or interviews for later today, the opportunity for DFO to gain the profile we would like for Kristi's work may be lost or very much diluted," Davis said in one email.


"We are pushing hard," Walker-Sisttie assured the Vancouver communications office.


Then, weeks after the department learned Miller's findings were to be published in Science and several days after 7,400 journalists were notified about the study, the PCO decided not to let Miller talk about her findings and their significance.


"PCO has decided that we can only respond in writing," Walker-Sisttie reported from Ottawa. Another explained: "Kristi was not approved to provide interviews."


The reporters, who the documents show were baffled and miffed by DFO's inability to get Miller on the phone or on camera for interviews, filed stories based on her highly technical Science report and interviews with some of Miller's colleagues at the University of B.C.


Miller is still not allowed to speak about the Science report, which she wrote in a Nov. 12 memo "reflects only a fraction of what we know."


But Miller will finally be able to discuss her work in late August, when she is scheduled to testify at the Cohen Commission.


Hutchings said government communication strategists are likely now busy telling Miller: "Here is what you can say. Here is what you can't say. Here is what we want you to stick to. Don't talkabout this."


"I'd be amazed if she is not receiving such quote, unquote 'advice,' " said Hutchings.


mmunro@postmedia.com


Twitter.com/margaretmunro

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
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cutthroat22

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troutbreath

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2011, 10:57:52 AM »

There has been documented cases in other coutries where fish farms were capable of spreading diseases and wiping out the fishery there. In Canada there is money going to certain political parties to make sure the same thing happens here. Then there will only be farmed salmon for sale. Fish farmers are not going to lose any sleep if the salmon get wiped out, more likely to through one big party. Gordy will be there for sure, fly all the back from Britain.
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Rodney

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2011, 01:40:24 PM »

I was more interested in seeing the publication but was disappointed, but not surprised, that the journalist didn't even bother discuss it or provide a reference of it.

Anyway, here's the abstract of the publication.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/214.short

Personally, I'd prefer to read the actual publication in question than relying on what journalists think the authorities are trying to do.

Full text for your reading pleasure

chris gadsden

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2011, 10:52:04 AM »

There is a rather spectacular change of mood in mainstream media regarding the wild salmon file.

Throughout the country - and now in the US - media is perplexing over the muzzling of DFO researcher Dr. Kristi Miller, who has uncovered the salmon virus in BC but is being shut down by her hierarchy.

The media is - finally! - sensing a gigantic institutional cover-up, one which goes beyond the borders of BC or even Canada but is transnational in scope.

Ottawa Citizen: Spinning the salmon story

Time Colonist: Muzzling scientists wrong

New York Times: Norwegians Concede a Role in Chilean Salmon Virus

The Star Phoenix: Let scientist speak out

Mac Lean's: Science that dare not speak its name

CKNW: Harper muzzles salmon scientist

etc. etc. etc.


Activists, time to push for the wild salmon. Help is on the way!

In the last week of August there will be three critical days at the Cohen Commission which is inquiring in the collapse of the 2009 Fraser sockeye.

August 22, 23, 24 are dedicated to 'Diseases' at the Commission, and Dr. Kristi Miller - the muzzled DFO researcher - is called to testify on one of these days.

Consider attending one or more of these critical days so that you can personally bear witness to what was said, or un-said, about the salmon virus.

Cohen Commission - 701 W Georgia St (corner of Granville St) in Vancouver

There will also be some salmon-related events on or around those days. A good resource to stay in the loop is here.





--
Ivan Doumenc

shuswapsteve

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2011, 09:54:58 PM »

Might want to be slightly careful at what journalists report.  Often in these cases they are intended more for entertainment and sensationalism than information.  Who doesn't love to hate the government?  Sometimes what the media reports do not say is actually more telling.  If you actually read the published (not secret) Miller study you will find that it has more to say than what the media is actually reporting; however, you won't see it printed because it is deemed boring and and does not involve DFO bashing.  If people are interested in knowing more they should actually be going to the Cohen Commission website or read the actual paper (there's an idea) instead getting their information from the Unrealistic Canadian website.  Too bad many people did not start taking an interest in the inquiry until now.
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alwaysfishn

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2011, 10:05:37 PM »

Might want to be slightly careful at what journalists report.  Often in these cases they are intended more for entertainment and sensationalism than information.  Who doesn't love to hate the government?  Sometimes what the media reports do not say is actually more telling.  If you actually read the published (not secret) Miller study you will find that it has more to say than what the media is actually reporting; however, you won't see it printed because it is deemed boring and and does not involve DFO bashing.  If people are interested in knowing more they should actually be going to the Cohen Commission website or read the actual paper (there's an idea) instead getting their information from the Unrealistic Canadian website.  Too bad many people did not start taking an interest in the inquiry until now.

Well said!
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Rodney

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2011, 10:48:02 PM »

I've posted the link to the publication in the earlier post, also the abstract for those who can't read through the whole thing, so has anyone decoded the hidden secret that has been covered up yet? ;)

StillAqua

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2011, 02:46:04 PM »

I've posted the link to the publication in the earlier post, also the abstract for those who can't read through the whole thing, so has anyone decoded the hidden secret that has been covered up yet? ;)

Hmm....let's see........a salmon virus likely killing sockeye........signs of problems with early Fraser River entry and mortality started back in the '90's.........hmmmm.......wonder where this strange salmon virus came from..........hmmm.......what else was going on in Georgia Strait back then.......hmmmm......seems to scare the s**t out of the Harper boys so much they don't want their scientists talking about it........same thing they did with global warming.......hmmmm.......wonder what it could be?  ???
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Rodney

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2011, 03:21:12 PM »

Hmm....let's see........a salmon virus likely killing sockeye........signs of problems with early Fraser River entry and mortality started back in the '90's.........hmmmm.......wonder where this strange salmon virus came from..........hmmm.......what else was going on in Georgia Strait back then.......hmmmm......seems to scare the s**t out of the Harper boys so much they don't want their scientists talking about it........same thing they did with global warming.......hmmmm.......wonder what it could be?  ???

Are these findings in the study or are these speculations that you've developed from reading the study?

troutbreath

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2011, 08:10:07 PM »

Well Rod seeing that Noam Chomsky isn't a member of this site, and only you and alwaysphishing know the answer, any chance you will stop dangling us from the hook?
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Sandman

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2011, 09:30:34 PM »

Are these findings in the study or are these speculations that you've developed from reading the study?

These would appear to be speculations developed from reading the study as Miller is careful not to claim cause of the virus.  The hypothesis is that there is a virus affecting the genetic integrity of salmon that have an increase likelihood of not surviving to spawn.  Given that there is a correlation between the dates that this pre-spawn mortality has become an issue and the expansion of fish farming in the  Inside Passage, I think it at least begs for a moratorium on aquaculture until it can be ruled out the source of this deadly virus.  It is this that seems  to be scaring the government.

As a side note...is anyone really surprised that Harper's government is capable of censoring the media (this does indeed amount to censorship) "for fear that [they] will not be able to control the way the disease issue could be construed in the press"?  For years we feared Harper and his radical views and, despite our desire to destroy the Liberals for their corruption, we were too scared to give him a majority.  Now he has it and this is just the beginning.  It is going to be a long 5 years.
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StillAqua

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2011, 07:53:15 AM »

Are these findings in the study or are these speculations that you've developed from reading the study?

The problem with not allowing scientists to speak freely about their findings is that it means others who are not scientists familiar with the limitations of the science or who have a personal agenda to pursue are left to interpret the significance of the findings to the media and the public. Harper and company don't seem to understand this. People drawing a link to fish farms was inevitable. I thought the Tyee did a nice balanced article:
 
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/06/30/SockeyeVirus/
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alwaysfishn

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Re: Ottawa silences scientist over West Coast salmon study
« Reply #14 on: July 30, 2011, 08:20:32 AM »

As a side note...is anyone really surprised that Harper's government is capable of censoring the media (this does indeed amount to censorship) "for fear that [they] will not be able to control the way the disease issue could be construed in the press"?  For years we feared Harper and his radical views and, despite our desire to destroy the Liberals for their corruption, we were too scared to give him a majority.  Now he has it and this is just the beginning.  It is going to be a long 5 years.

If my memory serves me correctly, wasn't it the PMO's office that voluntarily called the Cohen commission inquiry?  And now you are theorizing that he is trying to scuttle the inquiry by "censoring the media"?   :D
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