UAlbany says PCB researcher may resume teaching on campus

Dr. David O. Carpenter, head of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University at Albany.

ALBANY — The University at Albany late Tuesday said that Dr. David O. Carpenter, the longtime director of the school's Institute for Health and the Environment, will not face discipline and "is no longer on an alternate assignment and may now teach and conduct research on campus."

The university's announcement came as Carpenter received increasing support from environmental advocates to be reinstated after he was directed nine months ago not to visit any campuses and to perform his duties from home as the school investigated his extensive work testifying as an expert witness in toxic pollution cases.

"UAlbany's investigation regarding Dr. Carpenter has concluded, and no discipline will be imposed based on such investigation," a university spokesman said in a statement. "As is standard, UAlbany and Dr. Carpenter also entered into a Conflict Management Plan to ensure future activities are carried out in compliance with all applicable laws and policies. UAlbany reiterates in the strongest possible terms our full commitment to unfettered academic freedom."

Carpenter became the subject of a disciplinary investigation last year after a Freedom of Information Law request was filed by an attorney with Shook Hardy & Bacon, a Missouri law firm that represents Monsanto Company in toxic pollution cases it has faced across the nation.

Carpenter, who said he donates the money he receives from his expert testimony to Ph.D. students and the university's research program, has testified against Monsanto in numerous "toxic tort" cases — in which plaintiffs allege injuries from toxic substances — that have yielded multi-million-dollar verdicts against the company.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Carpenter said he is "very happy that the university has concluded its investigation and announced that my work as an expert witness did not merit discipline."

Carpenter will be able to resume his outside work testifying as an expert witness in toxic pollution cases but will also sign a "conflict management plan to ensure future activities are carried out in compliance with all applicable laws and policies," the unversity said.

"I am very proud of my work with plaintiffs around the country who seek to hold Monsanto responsible for the damage done by its products, and I am humbled and deeply appreciative of the thousands of people who heard about my situation and supported me," Carpenter added in his statement. "Your voices were heard."

On Tuesday morning, a group that promotes environmental integrity among public employees had filed a complaint with UAlbany urging the school's Senate to investigate what it called "wrongful retaliatory actions" against Carpenter.

The complaint filed by the Maryland-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility alleged Carpenter was subjected by university officials to "conduct that has restricted his academic freedom and freedom of expression."

A day earlier, UAlbany President Havidan Rodriguez issued a statement to the school's faculty and staff in response to Carpenter's situation, saying he wanted "to reiterate in the strongest possible terms UAlbany's full commitment to unfettered academic freedom."

"The basic tenets and strong foundations of institutions of higher education have been based on academic freedom," Rodriguez wrote in the email. "Consequently, we should and will resist any actions that censor or infringe on a faculty member's intellectual and academic freedom. This is imperative in order to ensure that our institution is fulfilling its mission of free inquiry, intellectual innovation and discovery, and impactful scholarship." After the Times Union's first story on the matter was published earlier this month, attorneys for Monsanto Company filed an emergency motion asking a Missouri judge to let them reopen discovery in a pollution contamination case brought by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe so they can learn more about the ongoing disciplinary investigation of Carpenter.

Carpenter, who is serving as an expert witness in numerous cases against Monsanto and other companies, is a key witness in the case in which the tribe is suing the company and its corporate successors, including Solutia, Inc., and Pharmacia LLC. The tribe alleges its members have an increased risk of cancer and other diseases due to PCB exposure from eating fish taken from contaminated waters. The pollution is alleged to have come from Superfund sites adjacent to the sprawling Akwesasne tribal lands that straddle the U.S.-Canadian border in northern New York.

Attorneys for the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe responded with a motion filed last week in the case asking for Monsanto's request to be rejected and noting the case is scheduled for trial in less than six weeks.

"Defendants should not be allowed to reopen discovery just because their interest was piqued by a newspaper article," the tribe's attorneys wrote in their motion. "Deadlines would be meaningless if every time opposing parties 'dug up' something on an opposing expert or witness prior to trial the parties were entitled to take another deposition."

They also cast the information the company is seeking about the 86-year-old public health physician as "immaterial" and asserted that his placement on "alternate assignment" is not considered discipline. However, the university's letter to Carpenter last May informing him he was being placed on alternate assignment noted that it was in connection with "a disciplinary investigation."

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $66 billion, issued a statement to the Times Union two weeks ago alleging the revelations about the disciplinary investigation of Carpenter raised questions because they contend he was using money from his testimony as an expert witness to support research programs at UAlbany — something the university has been aware of for years and that Carpenter has disclosed in prior testimony.

Carpenter has for decades conducted extensive research on PCB contamination from a General Motors Foundry Site in Massena, St. Lawrence County, that closed in 2009. The plant was directly adjacent to the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne, and Carpenter's research included health studies of the Mohawks and animal toxicology studies examining the effects of PCBs on the nervous, immune and endocrine systems. Two other aluminum foundries in that area also were blamed for leaking PCBs into the St. Lawrence River from hydraulic fluids they used.

The chemical company has frequently faced off against Carpenter when he has testified as an expert in civil actions in which the plaintiffs are usually alleging they have suffered serious health consequences due to exposure to toxic substances. Monsanto has paid billions of dollars through court verdicts and settlements related to its manufacturing of PCBs — or polychlorinated biphenyls — and other biochemical products. Nearly all PCBs in the U.S. were produced by Monsanto before the chemicals were banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1977.