LITIGATION REVEALS THAT UCSC RESEARCHERS WITHHELD DATA FROM PUBLISHED STUDY

ON FEBRUARY 8, 2012. POSTED IN LATEST NEWS, LEGAL NEWS

Santa Cruz, CA — On December 1, 2010, attorneys for the California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation (the Foundation) made a public record request to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). That request sought the production of documents regarding, among other things, the results of certain ammunition sampling related to a published thesis and the related paper Ammunition is the Principal Source of Lead Accumulated by California Condors Re-introduced to the Wild. That 2006 paper is often cited as providing the justification for limiting hunters’ use of traditional lead-based ammunition.

As of April 7, 2011, UCSC had not provided all of the documents. UCSC contended that it was allowed to withhold documents based on something called the “researcher’s privilege,” even though no published ruling or statute states that a “researcher’s privilege” even exists in California.

In an attempt to compromise with UCSC, the Foundation asked UCSC to produce general descriptions of the documents it was withholding, so that the Foundation could determine if it was even interested in what UCSC was trying to keep secret. UCSC refused, and the Foundation was forced to sue under California’s Public Records Act.

During the lawsuit, the Foundation presented evidence that certain data had been collected for, but omitted from, the 2006 paper. In fact, during the lawsuit the Foundation specifically requested that the UCSC researchers explain why the data had been omitted from the 2006 paper. An attorney speaking for the researchers flatly refused to respond. Finally, in January of 2012, UCSC’s attorney finally confirmed that, as the Foundation has asserted for months, UCSC researchers had omitted certain data from the 2006 paper, even though that particular data was collected specifically for use in the work.

Although finally admitting that data had been omitted, UCSC’s attorney specifically refused to reveal why the omission occurred. Furthermore, that attorney threatened that if the Foundation went public with one particular theory that would explain why the data was omitted from the thesis/2006 paper, it could get the Foundation “into trouble[.]”

The Foundation is unsure why stating a theory would get it into trouble, especially as UCSC has expressly refused to explain the true reason why data was withheld from a pair of scientific publications. Regardless, until UCSC is willing to admit the truth as to why its scientific researchers withheld data, the public will be left to wonder why the omission occurred.