In another example of corporate interference in the dissemination of critical research results, a drinking water experiment that took place in Wiarton, Ontario has led to questionable results that could have significant public health risks.

For nearly a month in summer 2000, a large chemical company collaborated with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, the Ontario Clean Water Agency, a Canadian university’s drinking water research group, and the Wiarton municipal government to test chlorine dioxide as an alternative to traditional chlorination in the town’s drinking water. Wiarton residents were not informed of the experiment in advance, even though the chlorine dioxide disinfectant by-product levels in their drinking water were above the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s “maximum contaminant level.”6

During the study, Wiarton residents filed dozens of complaints about bleach stains on laundered clothing, taste and odour problems, and even the death of pets. The study was only terminated following headlines in the Globe & Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star.

Despite the widespread and well-known dissatisfaction of Wiarton residents, researchers’ submissions to academic publications following the experiment lauded it as a success, claiming that “no customer taste and odour complaints were reported during the study period”.7 Even the university publicised the “novel and successful trials to improve Wiarton, Ontario’s drinking water”.8 In May 2005, Health Canada proposed new Canadian drinking water quality guidelines, citing the study as evidence that chlorine dioxide could “maintain water quality”.9

Efforts to expose the discrepancies in reports on the Wiarton experiment by a former graduate student, Chris Radziminski, have been ignored by the university. Although the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council partly funded the project, it insists that the complaint was “purely a private matter” and that NSERC has no mandate to protect whistleblowers. The Canadian Federation of Students sought a federal court ruling challenging the granting council’s inaction, but a judge upheld NSERC’s decision to not seek an investigation from the University of Toronto.

The ruling exposes an alarming gap in accountability for publicly-funded research. Although NSERC technically has a duty to demand ethical behaviour from universities that receive funding, there is virtually no pragmatic oversight by NSERC, even in the face of complaints. The judgement confirms that universities are responsible for policing themselves, and no appeal mechanism is available for whistleblowers who have evidence of misconduct and procedural abuse.