[Dioxin-l] Fwd: Toxicology - Urgent Message

[G. De Mey]

On the verge of deleting such a long message, I read it through. I'm posting
this to prod sleeping congeners to catalyze this appeal!
Stand up,
Heide Simonis (heide.simonis@landsh.de)        Prime Minister (Mrs.)
Hermann Kruse (kruse@toxi.uni-kiel.de)          Dr.
Ruprecht Haensel (fax: 49 431 880-7333)        Rektor Prof. Dr.
H.K. Albers (fax: 49 431 597-2950)                Dekan Prof. Dr. Dr.

Guido De Mey, Afrikalaan 11, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium.

Norbert Dichter schreef:

> +++++ begin of forwarded message +++++
>
> Subject: Toxicology - Urgent Message
>
> http://www.uni-kiel.de:80/toxikologie/message-en.htm
> <BASE HREF="http://www.uni-kiel.de:80/toxikologie/
>         message-en.htm">
> Doomsday for Toxicology in Germany
>
> Critical science is often at loggerheads with both the industries and some
> scientific circles, which enjoy generous financing through the industries.
> Oftentimes, such scientific critics or institutions are silenced either by
> severing of funds, or - a more drastic and sure punitive measure - by
> shutting down the institution. Since environmental toxicology has no good
> tidings to spread, it has become a thorn in the flesh for industrial
> polluters and their "experts". In Germany, the few academically independent
> institutes of toxicology at universities are being increasingly dismantled
> - at the retirement of the Professor and Head - even when the core of the
> scientific activity was not environmentally oriented - a strategy of
> nipping in the bud! In this manner about half of the former potential in
> this discipline in Germany has already been destroyed!
>
> One university institute which has stood out nationwide and which has
> dedicated its scientific and financial resources solely to teaching and
> research is the Institute of Toxicology at the University of Kiel under the
> directorship of Professor Otmar Wassermann. For the last three decades
> Prof. Wassermann has taken bold public positions in support of protecting
> public health on environmental toxicology issue. He and his team have
> provided unrelenting efforts with often clashes in public debate and in
> courts for improvements in emission standards (e.g. waste incineration),
> pesticide reductions, hazards due to wood preservatives, dental amalgam
> etc., evaluation of endocrine disruptors, causal relations of radioactive
> burdens around atomic power plants and childhood leukaemias etc.. The
> Institute of Toxicology in Kiel is now facing doomsday: upon the pending
> retirement of Otmar Wassermann this year, the Medical Faculty of the
> University of Kiel has put up a plan to downsize the status of the
> institute by stripping off its endowment with a Full Professorship and
> replacing it with a less attractive and less influential Associate
> Professorship - a well-aimed degenerative measure! - and curtailing
> teaching and research of toxicology to "side effects of drugs", the genuine
> obligation and responsibility of drug manufacturers! Whether by cynicism or
> by ignorance, the Medical Faculty calls this destruction "strengthening of
> toxicology" ...
>
> Even the state politicians (Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein) in the
> State Legislative Assembly and present Government (a Social Democrat and
> Green coalition) recognise the need, in public interest, to maintain the
> Institute of Toxicology both in its present independent form and scope of
> activities. However, vested (concealed personal and industrial) interests
> in part of the Medical Faculty (which calls itself "Profit-Center" ...),
> are pushing on with their vindictive plans of downsizing (camouflaged by
> arguments of structural reorganisation) to ward off interference on grounds
> of the "autonomy of the university". The staff of the Institute of
> Toxicology therefore seeks your support to make an appeal to the State
> Government (Prime Minister's Office) to courageously exercise its right of
> denying sanction to the plan of the Medical Faculty, since it belongs to a
> state university. Destruction of the Institute of Toxicology at Kiel would
> be an unrecoverable blow to international (environmental) toxicology -
> students will be denied of exposure to critical assessments of
> toxicological problems; the public will be denied excess to critical
> experts for help when needed, and independent research will be gone once
> and for all!
>
> Kiel, January 2000
>
> The Staff of the
> Institute of Toxicology
> Christian-Albrechts-Universiät Kiel
> Brunswiker Str. 10
> D-24105 Kiel
> Germany
>
> Fax: 0049-431-597 3558
> http://www.uni-kiel.de/toxikologie/tox_home.htm
> e-mail: kruse@toxi.uni-kiel.de
> Please direct your appeal to:
> The Prime Minister Mrs. Heide Simonis, Landeshaus, Düsternbrooker Weg 70,
> D-24105 Kiel, Germany (Fax: 0049-431-988 1960, e-mail:
> heide.simonis@landsh.de).
> With a copy to us, please.
> Dr. Hermann Kruse (e-mail: kruse@toxi.uni-kiel.de)
> +++++ end of forwarded message +++++
> And would you please address your concerns to the Head of the University
> and the Dekan of the Medicine Department:
>
> Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
>
> Rektorat
> Rektor Prof. Dr. Ruprecht Haensel
> mailto:haensel@rektorat.uni-kiel.de
> Postadresse: Olshausenstr. 40
> D-24098 Kiel
> Telefon: + 49 431 880-3000
> Telefon Büro: + 49 431 880-2100
> Telefax: + 49 431 880-7333
>
> Dekanat der Medizinischen Fakultät
> Dekan
> Prof. Dr. Dr. H. K. Albers
> mailto:albers@konspar.uni-kiel.de
> Christian-Albrechts-Platz 4
> D-24118 Kiel
> Tel 0431/8802126
> Fax 597-2950
> ++++++++++++++++++++++ snip ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
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