Is BP buying silence?

From NPR…

For months now, local scientists have been out on Gulf waters, advising the cleanup and measuring the damage. But there is growing concern that some of the best minds are being sidelined, since they’ve signed on as paid consultants to BP. “Everybody’s arming up for the big day in court,” says Richard Shaw, the director of Louisiana State University’s Coastal Fisheries Institute. He’s one of many concerned that BP is buying up too much of the region’s brainpower. “You would think you’d want to bring all the intellectual resources to bear,” he says. “It’s pretty frustrating.” Shaw says he has not been approached by BP, but many of his colleagues have. University of South Alabama’s Bob Shipp says BP’s lawyers tried to hire his whole Department of Marine Sciences to do research for them. Under the deal, the scientists could disclose their results only if BP said so. Otherwise, they’d have to keep it secret for three years. “They wanted the oversight authority to keep us from publishing things if, for whatever reason, they didn’t want them to be published,” Shipp says. “People were muzzled as part of the contract. They were muzzled, and certainly it’s not something we could live with.” But professors from some universities, like LSU, Texas A&M and the University of Southern Mississippi, did accept BP offers. After a blast of public criticism, however, the Mississippi professors had a change of heart and backed out…

“When the best fishery scientists actually may have evidence that would work against you, but they’re not able to present it to the other side or to the public, well then, you’ve essentially bought some silence,” he says.