Science Policy Takes Center Stage at the White House - Embryonic Stem Cells and More

Today, American President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that lifted the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The ban was put in place by past-president George W. Bush shortly after taking office in 2001. In lifting the ban, Obama said "we will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research. And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield."

But perhaps even more importantly, Obama took this occasion to issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy "to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making."

In sharp contrast to what many feel was a former president adverse to science, President Obama insisted that supporting science was a critical function of government. The memorandum, he said, would

"ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; that we appoint scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology; and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions. That is how we will harness the power of science to achieve our goals – to preserve our environment and protect our national security; to create the jobs of the future, and live longer, healthier lives."

He made clear that his decision was not made based on his belief in science alone: "As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering." Further, he said that "a false choice has often been presented between science and faith, and that corrupting, shielding, or shying away from the facts science lays bare benefits nobody."

The emphasis on science is very welcome to most scientists who feel that their ability to pursue meaning research has been unduly restricted in recent years.

Past Director of Health Institutes Lauds Stimulus Funding for Science

A week or so ago I posted some of the new funding for science added to the stimulus package passed by Congress. Well, now the immediate past director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Elias A. Zerhouni, says that "the timing and amount of this stimulus could not have been more opportune." He notes that not only have science budgets fallen steadily since 2003, philanthropic foundations and private gifts that helped lessen the shortfall have been severely cut back as well due to the current economic downturn.

While some complain that funding for science isn't "stimulus," Zerhouni says that he has "testified in Congress that for every $1 billion shortfall in the NIH base budget, an estimated 6000 to 9000 scientific jobs are lost, with an equal number of jobs lost in indirect support activities." Add to that all the other jobs lost as industry lays off scientific staff.

So while the economic stimulus funds will help in the short term, Zerhouni cautions that this is only a partial answer. To be successful in staving "off the loss of talented scientists" it must be "coupled with a longer-term increase in the base budgets of the research agencies." This will be hard to do in tough economic times, but "it may well be attainable given the clear and welcome commitment to science just shown by the new U.S. administration and Congress."

Finally, Zerhouni notes that "A nation's most strategic resource is the strength of its scientific workforce. It is imperative that the entire scientific community coalesce around a quantifiable and shared rationale for rebalancing the base domestic federal research budget beyond the one-time stimulus package." I think most scientists would agree that funding has been severely limiting the ability to make new discoveries and understand the critical issues that face our future. This is a priority that must be kept in mind even as we deal collectively with economic uncertainties.

[Mr. Zerhouni made these comments as an editorial in the current issue of Science magazine (February 20, 2009), which is accessible by subscription (www.sciencemag.org). Photo credit, National Institutes of Health.]

When Scientists Go Bad - The Ramifications of Ethical Lapses

A doctor in the UK "changed and misreported results" in his research, "creating the appearance of a possible link" between the MMR vaccine and autism, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times . In 1998 the results are published in a well-respected medical journal, The Lancet. After publication the rates of MMR (Mumps Measles, Rubella) inoculation fall from 92% to below 80%. And last week official figures show that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared to only 56 in 1998. Two children have died from the disease.

Scientific integrity is occasionally called into question, and cases like this, while rare, can make the public reconsider the trust they put in us. In this particular case, the data published in the Lancet did not reflect the actual data collected during the research. According to the Times investigation, there were clear cases of data being manipulated to create false conclusions. Worse, there appears to be significant conflicts of interest and litigation bias that influenced the findings. None of these conflicts were reported by the doctor. And the fraudulent data led to a mass scare and distrust of the MMR vaccine, leading to the very epidemic that many years of the vaccine's use had held off. Fear of the cure caused the disease to rise for not only the individuals refusing the vaccine but the population as a whole since the diseases are so contagious.

Cases like this demonstrate why scientific fraud is rare. True, the peer-review process of journal publication missed this one, largely because the data presented were not the data collected. Without external review of the original files, it is hard to determine that someone has "fixed" the numbers. But another tenet of science, repeatability, helped flush out the deceit. Other scientists attempting to replicate the findings were not able to reach similar results. Samples that were reported to show signs of disease were reanalyzed at other laboratories and found to show no signs of those diseases at all. Digging into the raw data, which by law is kept confidential, especially when it involves children as did this study, was made possible by permission given by the parents for outside review.

In the end, the ramifications of deceit can be catastrophic. Which is why scientists work so hard to keep high ethical standards. But while that is true as a group, sometimes individual scientists lose their way.

Click here and here for a full account of the Sunday Times investigation. For a timeline of key dates in the crisis, click here.