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...to be expected to be unbiased by its very nature. Scientific papers are usually read by peers, who may or may not be sympathetic to the author’s views, but they are all members of the same scientific community, speaking the same scientific language. It is a community of professional peers, holding similar values and standards of evidence. "When you're dealing with a government advisory board," Milbers said, "or with civil servants whose careers depend upon maintaining a certain political posture, objectivity is a rare commodity. They don't want to hear the facts if they conflict with their policies. If the results of an investigation are embarrassing to the department, they suppress them, or bury them in the lower drawers of a bureaucrat's desk. And if they can't suppress them, they distort them to suit their own purposes. Take the 2003 ruling on the safety of GM crops. The European Commission had received dozens of scientific studies indicating potential risks. But the Commission didn't want to hear about risks. They wanted to lift the moratorium. So they ordered a review of the safety data, and the review conveniently concluded that GM crops posed no greater risk than conventional crops. The science was twisted to fit the policy."

"They're politicians first and scientists second," Bertelmann said, nodding. "Or rather, they aren't scientists at all; they're administrators and lawyers who use science as a prop for their decisions. Look at the whole business of the honey bee colony collapse disorder. For years, beekeepers and independent scientists were warning that systemic insecticides—neonicotinoids—were devastating bee populations. And what did the European Food Safety Authority do? They dismissed the warnings as inconclusive, they stalled, they commissioned more studies, they appointed committees. Meanwhile, the bees kept dying. It wasn't until public pressure reached a boiling point that they finally enacted a partial ban. And even then, it was full of loopholes. They're masters of the bureaucratic shuffle."

"Which brings us back to our immediate problem," Milbers said, leaning forward. "We have the data from the Munich lab, and we have the preliminary results from the field trials in the Danube delta. The transgenic corn is outcompeting the local varieties, and not just in yield. It’s aggressively colonizing the margins, crowding out native flora. The pollen is toxic to local butterfly species at concentrations much lower than what the manufacturer claimed. And the soil microbiota shows a significant drop in diversity after just two seasons. If this gets out before we publish, the backlash will be catastrophic for the corporate sponsors. But if we don't publish, or if we water down the conclusions, we're violating every scientific ethic we profess."

"We publish," Bertelmann said firmly. "We submit to the independent journal *Biosphere*, not the industry-sponsored *Agri-Environment*. We let the scientific community decide."

"And what about the corporate funding?" Milbers asked. "They'll pull the plug on our lab. They'll sue us for breach of contract, they'll demand the return of every cent, they'll ruin our reputations."

"Let them sue," Bertelmann said, his voice rising. "We have the integrity of the data. That's all that matters. If we compromise now, we might as well shut the doors and go work for the PR department of Monsanto."

"Easy for you to say," Milbers muttered, staring down at his empty coffee cup. "You're tenured. I'm still on a rolling contract."

"We stand together," Bertelmann said, placing a heavy hand on his younger colleague's shoulder. "We’ve come too far to back down now. The truth has a way of coming out, whether they want it to or not."

"I hope you're right," Milbers sighed, running a hand through his thinning hair. "I really do."

The afternoon sun slanted through the dusty windows of the faculty lounge, casting long shadows across the worn linoleum floor.

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