Some laboratories do not want to give their DLI

Will the scientific expertise out of the crisis These days, the news has released light one of the warmest concerns of our society. A few oysters parks are on the basin of Arcachon, a bloom of toxic phytoplankton and the recommendations of toxicologists who are vilified. Researchers at the Ifremer encrypt the disappearance of bluefin tuna, but Marseille fishermen are successful. On the other hand, the expertise is taken in flagrante delicto with a report of the administration denouncing the lack of rigor of the last two reports of the Afsset on the risks of mobile telephony.

In fact, the crisis of scientific expertise is permanent. Inserm publishes this year a study on behavior of childhood disorders and its researchers are immediately accused of safe drift. For twenty years, climatologists brandish signs of climate change but, on the eve of a new alarmist report from the IPCC, they undergo a campaign of denigration. GMOs, ethers, glycol, avian influenza, dioxins, Vioxx, greenhouse, loss of biodiversity, legionnaire's disease... All fronts on which scientific experts are constantly sent to Scouts. Each time, they are tossed between the scientific complexity of a subject, the apprehension of suspected of handling, the need to decide quickly under media fire.

On the other side, the company may rightly questioned the relevance of the rendered view. Major health or environmental scandals demonstrate many expertise incompletely or tampered with. At the time, round tables on the difficulty of this new scientific activity are more numerous. In Parliament, Senator Claude Saunier resulted in the national Office of evaluation of the scientific and technical choices on a substantive discussion. The mediator of Jean-Paul Delevoye, already has a similar project.

"We live a period of change of the model of expertise", confirms André Cicolella, Director of the assessment of health risks to the Ineris. "In the model, the expert spoke intuitu personae, he spoke of authority and did not need to say on what basis he based his expertise. At this opaque model in was succeeded by a new, transparent and more collective, which is based on the obligation to define the methodology and criteria used. "The methodology, it is the criticism by the inspection of labour and the environment to the report of the (former Afsse) Afsset. The Agency, she argues the lack of means. To say the least, it has only a remote support of its many departmental guardianship. She has little strength and its work are based on scientists from other agencies such as Inserm and the INVS. Its operation is hampered by administrative obstacles. His leadership thus waited months a new decree extending its spectrum of jurisdiction to the occupational health problems. She now faces the blocking of its Board of Directors and still has no scientific director for more than a year.

Conflicts of interest

"We have years of delay to Britain or the Netherlands, to just despair Michèle wheat-Vedrine, Executive Director of the Afsset. Our European neighbours have implemented good practice, the France and the French suffer a great inconsistency of expertise. "21 Research organizations practicing expertise have their own standards, some have even not!

The question of the independence of the experts and their conflict of interest is the most sensitive. He is remembered for Ragnar Rylander, the expert from the Swiss health agency, who was paying by Philip Morris to reduce the effect of passive smoking in its reports. In the 1990s, several scientific institutes such as the INRS or the Academy of sciences reported that asbestos is not a major threat.

Specialists are scarce

In other countries, it partially resolved the question by transparency. Experts are selected by invitation to tender and then their list is published. The Declaration of the links of interest (DLI) is also made public and updated at each meeting of the expertise. The DLI can take many forms: as specialist who goes to the Congress a lab, another who writes documents popularized for a mobile operator, etc. Finally, foreign experts are always required to formalize their relationship. In France, many are instead voluntarily kept private. Some laboratories do not want to give their DLI.

The France is another poorly: the scarcity of the experts. Thus, toxicology, only a few dozen specialists remain, with an average age over 50 years. "We manage a passage of five years, or even ten toxicology." Things should then arrange for the Affairs of public health attract young graduates of high level. "It will take just a few years to fill their lack of experience," said Michèle wheat-Vedrine. Blame primarily in recognition of this activity, less valued. Mobile telephony, French specialists rely on the fingers of a hand.

Cemagref, Gérard Brugnot has carried out several sensitive expertise which led him to think about the good practices. For him, the model developed ten years ago by Philippe Lazard, of Inserm, inspired now most of the French scientific institutions. Its principle is based on the credo of Descartes: science can resolve any issue, but if the translated into scientific language. This step discussed with the public sponsor is paramount, considers Gérard Brugnot because it directs the following activities of publimétrie then to designate experts. The publimétrie must be carefully chosen, these include do not ignore the grey literature, one that is not published in traditional journals ("Nature"...), but edited in small Committee or on the Internet.

Another odd to avoid: to include technical experts. "In the investigation on the BSE disaster, scientists had fallen on the recommendation to remove the vertebral column of bovine animals." "They had simply forgotten to audition a slaughterhouse veterinarian, the measure was inoperable abattoir", explains the expert. We also now know the importance of involving experts in economics and social and human sciences.

On the question of independence, Gérard Brugnot refers the donors of lessons to the new requirements of the public authorities: "we cannot ask researchers to find new external sources of funding and their then blamed for having links with the private sector, strikes it. The big advantage of the French system, it is that the pool of experts is challenged every expertise, it is fundamental. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, scientists are seconded to the expertise for a few years.

Claude Saunier proposes the creation of an independent agency of the expertise responsible for ensuring compliance with good practices. For some directors of scientific agencies as Carine Camby of the Biomedicine Agency, such a structure is not necessary, strict compliance with quality procedures is sufficiently effective. The debate is open, Claude Saunier well get him at the political level during the presidential election. Michèle wheat-Vedrine also militates for homogenization of practices while cautioning: "A force undermine the experts, we put the best who prefer to now work in Brussels and are least suspected and better treatment.