[Muanet] Researcher claims victimisation for bracing biotech giant

[Dion Giles]

Originally published by East Bay Express Oct 13, 2004

Ignacio Chapela's Last Stand

The status of an embattled Cal biotech critic may well end up in a judge's
hands.
	BY LEONIE SHERMAN


UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has been on the job less than a
month and already he's in the midst of an inherited tenure tempest
involving embattled assistant professor Ignacio Chapela. On his desk is a
letter from the Canadian Association of University Teachers urging the
chancellor, a Canadian scientist, to reconsider Chapela's case, which the
group claims "casts a dark shadow" on UC Berkeley and "raises serious
questions about academic freedom for controversial scholars at your new
institution."

Chapela, a microbial ecologist, was an outspoken critic of a $25 million
agreement between the school's College of Natural Resources and Swiss
biotech giant Novartis. He was also the first to report the contamination
of backyard maize plots in the Mexican state of Oaxaca with DNA from
genetically modified corn -- part of a controversial paper that was
published and later essentially retracted by the journal Nature (see
"Kernels of Truth," feature, May 29 20032).

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The story continues at 
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2004-10-13/news/cityside_print.html
telling of the discontinuation of Dr Chapela's ongoing contract on the 
recommendation of the university's budget committee (including a Novartis 
man who would not recuse himself from its deliberations) despite the 
support of the relevant department and the Academic Senate's tenure 
committee for the researcher. There is a long ongoing review process which, 
according to Ms Sherman, Dr Chapela is prepared to take all the way to the 
courts if necessary.

Dion Giles