Suit charges fraud in fudging of Benlate data
ELISABETH M. KIRSCHNER · Chemical & Engineering News · 1994
Plant growers have upped the ante from claims that DuPont's Benlate fungicide caused crop damage. Five Texas growers have filed a lawsuit charging three DuPont executives, DuPont's Atlanta law firm of Alston & Bird, Alta Analytical Laboratory (an independent lab), and two Alta chemists with fraud and conspiracy for manipulating Benlate test data. The growers base the charges on Alta phone logs and notes released recently in connection with a Benlate trial in Hawaii. DuPont is the target of hundreds of Benlate crop damage suits and 17 claims of health damages. But an amended petition, filed Nov. 30 in a Texas state court in Houston, is the first to claim DuPont's attorneys convinced an outside laboratory to misrepresent data. The growers allege Alston & Bird manipulated research data by the El Dorado Hills, Calif.-based lab. The legal team hired the lab to analyze soil samples from nurseries and farms claiming Benlate damage, to check for ...