Robert Van Den Bosch: Stop the Pesticide Conspiracy

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I do get some heat from my peers . . . but this is mainly due to the fact that I've deviated from the accepted notions of "Proper" academic behavior. That is, I've gotten involved in the public imbroglio over the pesticide issue, an action that many scientists feel represents undignified and unscholarly conduct. On the other hand, though, I feel it is my responsibility to be heard when I see aberrant and unsavory courses of action going on in my own area of expertise. I think that I must, as a public servant, speak out on such issues.

PLOWBOY: Does the fact that your aggressive stance might limit the agribusiness grants available to universities and research labs have anything to do with the peer pressure you've received?

VAN DEN BOSCH: I'm sure that enters into the problem. I can remember, for instance, a case when the Environmental Defense Fund asked me to round up a group of entomologists who would be willing to discuss the dangers of DDT . . . on behalf of the EDF and the Environmental Protection Agency.

When I was asked to do this, I immediately contacted about half a dozen of my "bug scientist" compatriots . . . and they all agreed that DDT was extremely dangerous and that its use should be curtailed. So I said, "Will you talk to Charles Wurster"—the Stony Brook University entomologist who was organizing the attack—"about testifying at the hearings in Washington?" Every one of the entomologists whom I spoke with agreed to do so. Yet when it came right down to the nitty-gritty, they all backed off because they were afraid of retribution ... in the form of punitive action from their administrators or the loss of further grant opportunities. So such "practical" factors do, in fact, influence the stands that people will take.

PLOWBOY: How would a college's administrators go about punishing one of its staff scientists? They obviously can't fire a tenured professor . . . or can they?

VAN DEN BOSCH: An actual dismissal wouldn't be too likely . . . but a university's decision makers can pass up a troublesome individual when promotion time comes around. For example . . . Robert Rudd-an entomologist at the University of California at Davis-wrote the book Pesticides and the Living Landscape. As a result of that publication, Rudd not only was passed over for promotion, but had his experiment station title taken away from him, too!

PLOWBOY: Have you suffered that sort of harassment from the administration at Berkeley?

VAN DEN BOSCH: No, I haven't—up to this point—been exposed to any such attacks at all. However . . . I'm perfectly aware that there has been effort on the part of a number of chemical-control-oriented groups to have my university's administration put a stop to my integrated pest management efforts. But Jim Kendrick-who is Berkeley's Vice President for Agricultural Sciences-has always put such people off . . . and I respect Jim very much for doing so. Of course. I don't know whether he merely considers me the "house radical"—and, as such, an asset to the University of California's liberal image or whether he believes, as I do, that a university should be a forum where men and women of honor can take their stands. Nevertheless, in this and in other institutions, there have been cases of harassment aimed at people who've taken strong positions on the chemical pest control issue.

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