As a large research university, McGill is one of the world’s leading institutions when it comes to scientific breakthroughs. With this title, however, comes great responsibility and a stringent public eye. 

In the past few years, McGill has received internal and external criticism on some of the research projects conducted within the Roddick gates, including military and pharmceutical research. 

But what happens when research that was conducted 40 years ago comes into question? That is exactly what has happened with John Corbett McDonald— former McGill professor of oncology—and his research on chrysotile asbestos.  This month marks one year since the release of CBC reporter Terrence McKenna’s provocative documentary on asbestos research at McGill. The Tribune has set out to recapitulate the controversy surrounding this research over the past year, and to look forward to the year ahead.

A story 40 years in the making

Chrysotile asbestos is the most commonly used form of asbestos. It was popularly employed as insulation between the 1950s and 1970s in countries around the world, including Canada. Historically, Quebec has been one of the major exporters of asbestos, with the largest asbestos mine in the world residing in the namesake town of Asbestos, Quebec.

The mineral is now widely recognized as a cancer causing agent—it is most known to cause mesothelioma, a cancer that commonly develops in the lungs—prompting over 40 countries to ban its use.

The CBC reported that in the late 1960s, the asbestos industry hired McDonald, at the time a professor in the oncology department at McGill, to conduct research into the health effects of asbestos. This is according to David Egilman, a clinical professor in the department of family medicine at Brown University, and a long-time critic of the use of asbestos.

McDonald’s study focused on the health of 11,000 asbestos miners and mill workers in Quebec, and it took place over the course of approximately 30 years. As late as 1998, McDonald co-wrote a paper with F.D. Liddell—a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics—based on these studies, which concluded that, at face value, the data proved that asbestos had a protective effect on workers’ health at a certain level of exposure.

The Internal Investigation

McDonald’s studies and conclusions on asbestos have raised two important debates within McGill and the wider scientific community in the past year. The first debate began after McKenna released a documentary on the CBC show The National on Feb. 2, 2012. The documentary accused McDonald of tailoring his results to comply with what was in the best interest of the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association (QAMA)—an asbestos company that gave one million dollars to fund McDonald’s research.

Following the release of McKenna’s documentary, McGill authorized an internal investigation to conclude whether or not these allegations of research misconduct were founded.

David Eidelman, vice principal (health affairs) and dean of medicine, initially asked professor and chair of the department of epidemiology, biostatistics, and occupational health Rebecca Fuhrer to do a preliminary review of the research material to determine whether or not an internal investigation needed to be held. According to Eidelman, there was no obvious reason based on the preliminary review on which to conduct an official investigation. He said, though, that there was enough uncertainty that he felt compelled to formally commission  McGill’s Research Integrity Officer (RIO) Abraham Fuks to conduct the internal investigation on McDonald’s research in April 2012.

“I think our process is very strong,” Eidelman said. “We have to have an internal process that is reliable and robust because we don’t just react when something is on TV. We hear about things before, and we have to be able to deal with them. The research in this university would be worthless if we couldn’t be sure it was carefully overseen.”

On Oct. 17, 2012, Eidelman announced that McGill had cleared McDonald of all charges, after receiving a 17-page report written by Fuks, which found no evidence of research misconduct.

“After we [announced] this … and shared the report, the people on campus were largely supportive of the way we did things, and I got really positive comments,” Eidelman said.

No external review into McDonald’s research was conducted. Eidelman stated that an external review is not something McGill requires when the university has been accused of research misconduct. He also pointed to the high costs of holding an external review.

The anti-asbestos lobby, however, has criticized McGill’s choice to conduct an internal investigation. Critics maintain that the internal investigation was self-serving on the part of the university, and that McGill continues to cover-up what it sees as research misconduct.

“I think they have done it because [their number one priority is] to protect McGill, to do public relations for McGill, and to cover the whole issue up,” said Kathleen Ruff, a senior advisor to the Rideau Institute—a Canadian non-profit organization that focuses on research and advocacy. “You can indeed do that when you have power and privilege, but not forever.”

Support from McGill faculty for both McDonald’s research and the internal review became apparent when David Egilman came to speak to the McGill community this January. He continued to argue that McDonald conducted malpractice in his research.

All the McGill professors who attended and participated in Egilman’s discussion defended McDonald’s 1998 paper after Egilman accused McDonald of research misconduct and called for the paper to be retracted. One of these professors was Eduardo Franco, the interim chair of McGill’s department of oncology.

“It seems to me [that there is] a festival of misinterpretation out there by the activists,” Franco told the Tribune. “Nobody is saying, not even the authors of that paper, that chrysotile asbestos is not hazardous.”

Franco said, instead, that McDonald derived his conclusions by comparing people who were heavily exposed and those who were only moderately exposed.

“At the end, they are being accused of having published a paper that indicated a protective effect,” he continued. “It’s not protective. It’s just in relative terms. If you are extremely exposed to asbestos, you are going to have a higher risk value than someone who is moderately exposed, and that may just be the semantics of the game.”

Both Franco and Eidelman addressed the issue of investigating research that was conducted 30 or 40 years ago.

One of the accusations against McDonald’s papers was that he did not properly disclose the source of his his funding. Franco pointed to the changes that have occurred in policies about disclosing conflicts of interest in published papers. He maintains that this is a recent practice that has only developed in the last three or four years.

“If this paper were published today, it would have of course included a conflict of interest statement,” Franco said. “So what Dr. Egilman is wrong in doing is trying to use a collective witch hunt to use the objects of today to condemn a study from 1998. This is completely wrong and unfair.”

Eidelman, too, pointed out that the rules of the game have changed in general since McDonald carried out his research.

“One of the issues is, of course, with rules that were in place, let’s say, in 1975, [they] are much less clear than the rules that are in place now,” he said. “That’s one of the things that makes that [internal investigation] different.”

“In the case of Dr. McDonald … as far as we are concerned, we’ve looked into it from a research misconduct point of view, and that issue is closed,” Eidelman continued. “From the point of view of what Dr. McDonald may or may not have said or what things he promoted or didn’t promote … the record is there for people to read for themselves and draw their own conclusion.”

Current implications and the anti-asbestos lobby

McDonald’s research provoked a second debate, which is now occurring around what McGill should do with McDonald’s papers—particularly, the one he co-wrote with Liddell in 1998.

Members of the anti-asbestos lobby, including Egilman and Ruff, have called on McGill to retract McDonald and Liddell’s paper.

According to the anti-asbestos lobby, McDonald’s research is still used today by asbestos companies to advocate for the use of asbestos in developing countries like Brazil and India, where asbestos continues to be used in construction. It is the anti-asbestos lobby’s mission to discontinue the use of asbestos around the world.

“McGill’s research done by McDonald still is one of the most important weapons used by the asbestos industry around the world to defeat efforts by health professionals to ban asbestos,” Ruff said.

According to Egilman and Ruff, in order for this paper to no longer be used in the defense of asbestos, the paper needs to be retracted. Egilman said that when he went to Science—the journal that originally published the paper—to ask for a retraction, the editors directed him to McGill, claiming this was a decision to be made by the university where the research took place.

McGill has not retracted the paper or indicated that retraction has been officially considered at all.

Franco believes there are no grounds for retraction because  Fuks’ internal investigation found that there was no research misconduct.

In an interview with the Tribune, Eidelman did not address the issue of retraction directly, saying that he would not comment on what Egilman has said on the topic.

“But I will say this: sometimes people confuse the issue of research misconduct,” Eidelman said. [Research misconduct] is … not presenting data fairly, not admitting … you took money from a company and then pretending you didn’t,” Eidelman said, implying that McDonald hadn’t done this. “And then [there is] deriving conclusions from data … that maybe aren’t the best conclusions.”

What’s next? The Asbestos Conference

Following the presentation of Fuks’ report to Senate last October, McGill announced that it will hold a conference on asbestos research, now slated to happen next September, as a follow-up on the internal investigations and reports.

The Faculty of Medicine, which is sponsoring the symposium, has tasked Eidelman with assembling a committee of both faculty and students to plan this conference. This committee first met on Jan. 14.

Eidelman explained that the first meeting was delayed in order to make sure that representatives from four student associations could participate. The student associations represeted are the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS), and the Medical Students’ Society (MSS). He also noted that having the conference in the fall gives the committee a chance to invite international authorities on the topic of asbestos to attend and that these people need months of notice before traveling to Montreal.

Eidelman said that the conference will take place over the course of a single day.

“All we can really do is a one-day symposium,” he said. “A couple of professors complained that you couldn’t do a proper job unless you had, like, three days.”

Eidelman explained that while the issue of asbestos is complex, the conference will not exclusively focus on the science  behind asbestos. Therefore, the  topics the committee would like to see discussed only require one day, according to  Eidelman.

“We will concentrate on two major issues.,” he said. “The morning will be given over to discussing asbestos, with a focus on the science.  We hope to address issues like what exactly is ‘asbestos,’ which turns out to be more complicated than it seems at first.”

He said the afternoon’s discussions will examine the university’s relationship with industry in general.

He also noted that students and professors alike will co-lead the conference. He expressed hope that students will play a leading role in all sessions that take place that day.

“We are trying to be forward-looking and make things better,” he said.

Eidelman said that the conference will be open to the public, and that the committee would like to bring in people from all sides of the debate to present their views—including those from the anti-asbestos lobby.

“Our goal is not to prove whether or not Dr. Egilman and his friends are right or wrong,” he said. “They cannot only speak for themselves, they speak very well for themselves, and they can defend their point of view. My goal and our goal here is to make sure that at McGill, we are giving a full and open discussion of the material, so people can interpret the information for themselves and come to their own conclusions.”

Ruff expressed skepticism over the idea of an asbestos symposium at McGill.

“I have nothing against conferences, but I think [the conference] really avoids the issue … that McGill has carried out a whitewash, and that the report by the Research Integrity Officer is completely full of incorrect information,” Ruff said. “The whole process has been unethical and biased.”

She pointed to how the internal report notes that McDonald did not attempt to hide his connection to the asbestos industry. She disputes this. According to Ruff, McDonald did conceal this link. When testifying at hearings in the U.S. over the issue of raising standards to protect workers, McDonald said he had no connection to the industry.

“This is a mark on McGill that will not go away until they address it in a clean, honest way,” Ruff continued.

On Feb. 20, the McGill administration hosted a Consultation Fair on the downtown campus concerning the recently released Statement of Values and Principles on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly and Operating Procedures. Participants at the Fair raised concerns with the language of the Statement of Values and the restrictions outlined in the Operating Procedures, as well as the relationship between the two documents.

The Statement of Values and the Operating Procedures will replace the provisional protocol that currently governs the university’s response to demonstrations and protests on campus. The provisional protocol has been in effect since Feb. 12, 2012, after a group of students occupied the sixth floor of the James Administration building for five days.

The Consultation Fair was the second of two fairs hosted to revise of the Statement of Values, before it is taken for approval to the McGill Senate on Mar. 20, and the Board of Governors on Apr. 26. The Operating Procedures, however, will not be ratified by either body. The first Consultation Fair was held at the Macdonald campus on Feb. 13.

Senior administrators engaged in moderated discussion with a small turnout of six students about possible improvements to be made to the content or language of the two documents.

“This protocol, for me, is the administration saying, ‘This is when we’re going to intervene, under these conditions,’ and [then] trying to describe those conditions,” Andre Costopoulos, dean of students said. “I think what we have to focus on is: are the statements in there clear enough?”

Several students did not appear to think so, and raised the issue of the document’s “ambiguous wording” throughout the discussion. Some pointed out that terms like “intimidation” and “intentionality,” found in the Statement of Values, may have great variance in meaning from person to person, and may affect whether an assembly would be classified as peaceful or not. Students suggested that vague terms such as these should therefore be changed or removed.

“[With a demonstration], one can intend to disrupt and not disrupt,” Morton Mendelson, deputy provost (student life and learning), said in response. “The issue of intentionality only comes into play when you intend to disrupt.”

Participants at Wednesday’s fair also discussed how much interference caused by a demonstration or assembly should be permitted before the event is deemed disruptive. Some students argued that the wording in the Statement of Values—specifically, the “right of members of the University community to carry out their normal activities without undue interference”—scarcely allows for the disruptive nature of demonstrations, and suggested substituting “interference” with “obstruction.”

Other students even questioned the need for two documents, and what makes them different.

Joey Shea, U3 arts, said she believes that the Operating Procedures should be more closely tied with the Statement of Values.

“For me, there [is] a lot of ambiguity as to what is the relationship between these two documents,” she said. “I totally agree with the Statement of Values for the most part, but … there’s a huge discrepancy—for me at least—between the values and how they’re going to be implemented [into the Operating Procedures].”

Students also suggested adding a ‘fair warning clause’ to the Operating Procedures in order to counteract the unclear language of the Statement of Values. McGill Security or the administration would use such a clause to issue clear warnings to protestors when their demonstration has been deemed in need of intervention. Sam Gregory, U1 arts, expressed concern about the lack of such a clause in the Operating Procedures.

“[Will] fair warning be given [to students] when protest will be broken up, or [when] actions [will] be taken?” Gregory asked. “[The Procedures] should also make clear to students what the consequences are for violating the rules.”

Students also expressed confusion over the roles and limits of McGill Security and the administration in maintaining peace on campus.

“Security Services, disciplinary officers … they all have very different but very defined roles, and they all have very different powers,” Costopoulos said in response to students’ questions.

“We need to better educate, not only students but staff and faculty as well, about who is responsible for what in terms of campus order,” he continued. “By making clearer the division of powers within university governance, we can create a context that is much clearer for students to express themselves without intimidation.”

The McGill community may continue to submit their feedback on both documents on the Statement of Value’s open website
until Mar. 8.

Every year, six McGill students invest vast amounts of time and energy into the events and operations of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). For this special ‘Behind the Scenes’ issue, the Tribune brings you the personalities behind the portfolios.

With elections for the 2013-2014 SSMU executive team just around the corner, the Tribune set out to learn more about the lives of the current SSMU team. 

As a full-time job, an exec position often requires these students to spend upwards of 12 hours in their office everyday, often seven days a week. For SSMU President Josh Redel, who has had a part-time job throughout his undergraduate degree, the almost $30,000 salary that comes with the job is only a small “relief” from the relentless demands of being an exec.

“I can put … all of my time [into SSMU], [and] the salary goes towards my rent, paying off student debt, [and] tuition,” he said. “My budget’s pretty tight.”

Although they receive a salary, execs are also students, albeit in a less intensive manner than many others who study at McGill. Vice-President Internal Michael Szpejda, who hopes to graduate next December, is only enrolled in one full-year, one-credit course.

“Initially in first semester I was in a few more classes, [but] there was no way I could do 400-level neuroscience classes and [SSMU] at the same time,” he said. “People think it’s like any of the faculty [executive positions] where you can totally still do school, but it really is a full-time job.”

Like Szpejda, most execs only take one course per semester. Some, however, have already graduated. Vice-President Clubs and Services Allison Cooper said she followed the course of action taken by many previous execs by choosing to stay on at McGill for another year after graduation as a ‘special student.’

“For example, to graduate from anthropology at McGill, you don’t need to have taken statistics as part of your graduation requirement, but then if you realize you need statistics to go to grad school … you have a year after you graduate that you can still be enrolled as a ‘special student’ and take courses for grad school,” she said. “It’s cool because the classes I’m taking don’t affect my [degree], so I’m not so stressed out in that sense.”

While Cooper is the only exec this year to be enrolled as a ‘special student,’ many execs also said that they feel odd heading to class, and feel disconnected from the world of McGill students.

“Sometimes I worry that I’ve lost sight of what an average student’s perception is of the university,” Redel said. “I have the opportunity to sit [on] the Board of Governors, to sit at Senate, [and] to meet with the Principal … so [I] have the opportunity to have explained, face-to-face, what’s going on, when most people hear it through an email that they probably don’t even read.”

Executives are frequently reminded of students’ apathy or outright disdain towards SSMU. According to Redel, much of the criticism stems from students’ uncertainty of what the role of the organization should be.

“Students get upset when SSMU takes political stances [because they ask] ‘Does SSMU have a mandate to do that project?” he said. “Let’s look at that objectively: What GA motion passed 4Floors being an event every year? None. It’s an initiative we think is good. You’ve elected us as your student representatives, and we think [an event like this] is something that represents students, or the best interests of students.”

Although they spend far less time in classrooms now, many SSMU execs feel that their experience in the office has affected the way they view themselves as students.

“If I can speak up to somebody in Senate, publically, in front of other students, in front of all the admin, then why can’t I tell my profs how I feel?” Vice-President University Affairs Haley Dinel said. “These kinds of positions empower you to take charge more of your degree [and] of your life.”

Vice-President External Robin Reid-Fraser said her position has also changed the way she thinks about other members of the McGill community.

“The staff people that we talk to, [I’ve] realized that most of them are very approachable, very committed, and a lot of them really do want to know what students think and really do appreciate the feedback that students have to give them,” she said. “Staff members don’t necessarily get enough credit for the work that they do and how open they are to dealing with students.”

Redel, however, said his advanced knowledge of the way the university works sometimes causes him to “fear” for McGill and the future of higher education.

“It costs $500 to install a plug at McGill, and one of the things students want more and more [of] are outlets in a classroom; but we don’t have enough money to [buy] even a single $50 chair,” he said. “How are we going to continue to grow and innovate in a time when we face austerity?”

Redel said he also finds members of the Board of Governors—McGill’s highest governing body, where he sits as one of two student representatives—to be “intimidating.”

“They do truly care about McGill, but the way in which they care about it might not align with how we think of a university … investments, portfolio, partnerships, alliances­—when they bring that to the university level, does that align with academia?” he said. “That’s where we see a lot of disagreements with Board of Governors. They really struggle to understand students sometimes, just because they’re so distant from [them].”

Speaking with members of the senior administration is also a key component of Dinel’s portfolio. She advised candidates for her position to focus on their communication skills and make sure they are knowledgeable about how the university functions.

“You need to make connections with people across the university, [and] you need to really understand the issues right off the bat,” she said. “The admin know there’s [going to be a] transition, but they’re not going to educate you. They’re not going to presume you know everything, but you have to come as well-versed as the person before you in your first meeting.”

When they’re not in meetings with the administration and other student bodies, the members of the exec team share much of their lives together in the SSMU Building.

“It’s kind of like when you have roommates—we all have to live together, but we’re all friends,” Dinel said. “If you’re not friends, you’re going to have problems.”

“We don’t want to let each other down,” she continued. “If we’re frustrated, we can at least say it or express it in a friendly way.”

Cooper agreed that the most important part of being on the SSMU exec is working as part of a team.

“You have to make decisions on an absurd diversity of things and learn each other’s portfolios,” she said. “You come into it and [say] you’re going to do clubs all the time, but you’re also a counsellor. No matter what your portfolio is … foremost, you’re on the exec team.”

In an email to the McGill community on Feb. 19, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum announced that on Feb. 8, she received word that the provincial government plans to impose more budgetary cuts on the Quebec university system for the next fiscal year. She stated that the Parti Québécois (PQ) will reduce its funding to McGill by another $19.1 million by April 2014.

According to Munroe-Blum, the government said that a failure by the school to make these cuts by the deadline would result in additional cuts of approximately $32 million.

These two announcements come on the heels of the PQ’s original announcement in December 2012, which already required McGill to cut t its operating budget by $19.1 million by April 2013.

“We are committed to continu[ing] to fight the Government’s decisions, but we are obliged to prepare for the worst,” Munroe-Blum’s email reads. “Our priorities must be to protect our core academic mission, and to ensure, as best we can, the well-being of our community, including our staff. We will need, however, to take serious action, including eliminating positions and pulling back on services, supports and programs.”

At four Town Hall meetings hosted on Feb. 11 and 12,  Provost Anthony Masi said that McGill’s deficit could reach $38 million by the 2013-2014 fiscal year. However, he announced a much larger figure at Senate last Tuesday. He said that these additional cuts could potentially result in McGill reaching a $200.8 million deficit by 2014-2015.

In a presentation given to Senate, Masi noted a few of the options the university has to make the PQ’s requirements, which include targeted cuts, across-the-board cuts, reduced salary increases and reductions, and increased enrolments above those already planned.

Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney compared these recent cuts and the issue of underfunding with what is happening at universities in other provinces.

“The operating funding available to universities in other provinces is greater than in Quebec, and it is operating funding that is used to pay almost all professors’ salaries,” he said. “Thus, Quebec universities are at a disadvantage with regard to the resources at their disposal to attract, retain, and competitively compensate professors.”

At a council meeting on Feb. 13, PGSS publicly took the stance that Quebec universities are underfunded. The motion that called for this position passed after intense debate over whether or not universities are underfunded, or if university administrations mismanage the funds they receive.

Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Josh Redel told the Tribune that he believes the university “is in a dire situation.” He pointed to the difficulties in responding to the cuts at SSMU, since the undergraduate society has a policy of supporting free education.

Redel also noted that during the Senate discussion, some professors asked that the university not implement across-the-board cuts, and that faculties and departments be exempt from budget reductions. Redel expressed concern over these sentiments, noting that if everyone does not accept a small percentage of the cuts, then some university services, such as libraries, might be forced to take much larger cuts.

Some members of the McGill community have already begun to plan for how they might deal with cuts. On Feb. 19, William Hendershot, associate academic dean for the Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, sent a memo to McGill’s program directors and specialization coordinators that stated that the faculty had looked at what courses it can cut.

“I have tabulated all the courses we are teaching on the Macdonald Campus and I have identified groups of courses that seem to be less important to our programs,” the memo reads. “For example, a course that is not a prerequisite for any other course and is not required in any program is probably of relatively minor importance.”

The memo goes on to list 36 courses—most of which are in the interdisciplinary program of bioresource engineering—that do not serve as prerequisites, and that were deemed “courses that could be dropped with relatively minor impact.”