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change, to experiment with new peda- gogic devices-these are proper areas for faculty concern and action. It is im- perative, however, that the quality of the student, of the educational process, of the physician, and of the medicine which he practices •be subject to continuous vigilance. To make medical education bigger wit]wut at the same time making it better is an insufficient goal. Any sug- gestion that medical schools may revert to the condition of trade schools of the pre-Flexnerian era must be resisted. The NEWS AND COMMENT number of years which intervene be- tween baccalaureate and doctoral de- grees, is, in my opinion, not important provided the product, the physician, is a continuing scholar in medicine. We should be dissatisfied with anything less. References and Notes 1. Report of the Surgeon General's Consultant Group on Medical Education, Physicians for a Growing America, HEW Publ. 0-524-154 (Department of Health, Education, and Wel- fare, Washington, D.C., 1959). 2. R. Fein, Tke Doctor Shortage: An Economic Diagnosis (Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1967). Special Virus Cancer Program: Travails of a Biological Moonshot Can basic research be targeted? The assumption that it can or ought to be has proved increasingly attractive to politicians and budget makers disen- chanted with science for science's sake. Yet despite the importance of the issue, little attention has been given to a uniquely ambitious attempt at targeting basic research toward a spe- cific goal, the Special , Virus Cancer Program (SVCP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The SVCP, now in its eighth year, has from the start relied heavily on the planning techniques used in space and military programs, and, for a biological under- taking, it has made similarly lavish use of resources. How well has the SVCP's moonshot approach succeeded in forcing the pace of scientific ad- vance? On the face of things, there has been much progress made since 1964, when the SVCP was launched with a $10 million budget. Much new knowl- edge has been acquired about tumor viruses and their role in causing can- cer in animals. Within the last few months, the SVCP seems to have come wi,thin reach of a major goal, the isolation of viruses presumed to cause cancer in man. Discovery of one such virus was announced this July by SVCP-supported scientists at the M. D. Anderson Institute in Houston, and two more eurekas were sounded earlier thisl 'rtt,onth Iby~ IIISVCP tG'yn'itiis IJIatl tlhl'c University of Southern California and at Georgetown University. With a tally of no less than three viruses, each announced as a probable human can- cer agent by its discoverers, the SVCP might seem well on target in its goal of developing a human cancer vaccine or other antiviral magic bullet. Although this is .how the public and Congress may see it, the SVCP is held in rather lower esteem among the sci- entific community, particularly by those best qualified to assess the pro- gram's contribution.* "The SVCP has been extremely ineffective and maybe has even had a negative effect," says one distinguashed cancer reseasch,er. "I hear nothing but complaints about the SVCP. Its main trouble is that it doesn't have much of an intellectual base; it has Huebner's enormous energies, one very good person-George Todaro- but most of the contractees are pretty mediocre"-runs the verdict of a well- established biolbgist. An eminent West Coast virologist complains, "The SVCP is a masquerade; they make continuous proclamations of progress to justify the vast amounts of money being spent. But the nature- of the program is that it excludes people who are highly critical. It has created a kind of stampede in which everyone * Apart from ofiicials of the SVCP, almost all scientists interviewed for this article asked that their names not be mentioned, many citing the risk of being denied funds, since, as one scicnti;t said, "the NC1 ha, a hi,tqry 01 \in,li,cCiv~•nc,s." '~ itriiol daru h,dh etuinrnt .ina auNc in ,tr,,logy or rcl.~'s1 ficlds. 3. A White Paper, Towards a Comprehensive Health Policy for the 1970's, HEW Publ. 0-427-047 (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 1971). 4. M. S. Blumberg, "Accelerated programs of medical education," J. Med. Educ. 46, 643 (1971). 5. One referee of this manuscript feared lest this paragraph might be misconstrued by a reader. That reader, if such there be, should be cau- tioned that this suggestion has an intentional element of irony. 6. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Higher Education and the Nation's Health: Policies for Medical and Dental Education (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1970). 7. J. A. D. Cooper, "Education for the health professions in the Soviet Union," J. Med. Educ. 46, 412 (1971). rushes lemming-like in the same direc- tion, and critical discussion, points of obvious contradiction, are ignored." Several virologists blame the moon- shot-style approach of the program for what they see as its lack of evident intellectual underpinning. The present emphasis on finding a human cancer virus is regarded by some virologists as more a political than a scientific goal, designed to impress politicians and sustain the program's funding mo- mentum. (For unless human cells dif- fer from mouse and chicken cells, it is already clear that their genetic in- heritance includes the specifications for a virus; the physical " isolation of a human-derived virus will not lead to an understanding of the fundamental aspects of cancer and cell biology, which are given less attention by the SVCP.) The success or otherwise of the SVCP is of topical interest not just because of the fanfare over the recent human virus claims, but aho becautee of the impending reorganization of the NCI hierarchy caused by the new cancer funding. (There are also signs that the programmatic approach of the SVCP is likely to be extended to other areas of cancer research-the I`TCI has let a $800,000 contract to a firm of systems analysts to develop a "national cancer plan.") The major criticisms made of the SVCP are that it uses a wasteful method of supporting research, allows <oo much power to individual scientists *;,o channel resources in a single direc- tion, has failed to develop an intellectual base for its overall research strategy, and excludes critics and outside advice. The SVCP has its admirers and positive achievements, but the exist- Lnce of criticisms such as these,. -<%-hether justified or not, shows that the rrber'6m~ hl fis tibt'lk~.6 tN'e hh~rtsi a'ind ;oinds of the acatiemic world. Yet the ,,,,t

administrators of the SVCP seem to have little inkling of the dissidence in the world outside, or at least have taken no steps to cope with it. Offi- cially, everything is running as smooth- ly as the arrows on the SVCP master plan, an assortment of interconnected boxes that bear labels such as "decision point" and "immunological control," and which embody the "research logic flow" for licking cancer. The program was launched in 1964, largely on the strength of the associa- tion then coming to light between the African cancer known as Burkitt's lymphoma and the herpes-type virus named after Epstein and Barr. But the methodology and intellectual approach of the program, which until 1969 was called the Special Virus Leukemia Program, was inherited from the NCI's chemotherapy program. With the un- written motto "Nothing too stupid to test," the chemotherapy program has handed out some $330 million since 1955 in -the search for a magic bullet against cancer, yet has managed to miss discovering many of the more useful anticancer agents in current use. Nevertheless, NCI officials de- cided to model other aspects of cancer research on the cherr.otherapy pro- gram, and since the contract mechan- ism was an essential feature of the planned approach-how else can a planner be sure of finding others to follow his ideas?-contracts were built into the ground plan of the cancer virus program. The budget of the SVCP had climbed to $36 million by fiscal 1971, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the funds available to the NCI's etiol- ogy division, and this year's budget for SVCP is $49 million. Formally, the SVCP is the extramural research pro- 24 DECEb1nL•R 1971 gram of the NCI's Office of Viral On- cology, but the same people, though in different capacities, operate both program and office, and the two are, for practical purposes, inseparable. The NCI scientific director for viral oncology and chairman of the SVCP is John B. Moloney. Under Moloney serve three branch chiefs, Robert Manaker, Robert J. Huebner, and George Todaro. The names of the three branches, which, by and large, differ from one another as much as do their respective functions, are the viral biology branch (Manaker), the viral carcinogenesis branch (Huebner), and the viral leukemia and lymphoma branch (Todaro). The three branches conduct some in-house research, which is distinct in theory but not in prac- tice from the extramural research sup- ported by the SVCP. In fact, a fair fraction of SVCP funds are used to support industrial laboratories that serve simply as extensions of the branch chiefs' in-house research facili- ties. These sums seem to amount to about $5.5 million for Huebner's laboratories, $1.8 million for Todaro's, and none for Manaker's. The purpose of this arrangement is to provide op- erational flexibility and avoid the restrictions on NIH hiring. The SVCP is divided into eight sea ments, each of which is supposed to have a specific research objective. Each segment is presided over by a chair- man and advisory working panel that reviews contracts. Contracts are di- rectly supervised by project officers, but a segment chairman may act as his own, project officer, particularly for contracts that are extensions of his in-house research. The largest of the eight SVCP segments are the develop- mental research segment chaired by ROItiCrt A. i\tnnal.er Manaker, which in fiscal 1971 con- trolled $10.1 million of the $31.6 mil- lion available to the program, and the solid tumor virus segment chaired by Huebner, which disposed of contracts worth $9.6 million. In addition, the branch chiefs control their in-house re- search budgets, which in fiscal 1971 amounted to a total of $4 million. The total amounts controlled by each branch chief fluctuate quite widely from month to month as con- tracts are let, axed, or swapped, but a current estimate given by Frank J. Rauscher, scientific director for etiol- ogy and Moloney's predecessor as head of the SVCP, is that Manaker controls $9 million, Huebner $7.5 mil- lion, and Todaro $6 million. Probably few individuals in the history of bio- logical research have had such un- fettered control over so much money. The unusual power wielded by the three branches is one focus for criti- cism from the academic community; but the strongest objections are to the contract mechanism of supporting re- search and what is perceived as the program's insulation from' outside ad- vice. "They have purposely isolated themselves from the scientific commu- nity because they have been so much on the defensive," says a virologist acquainted with NIH affairs. Accord- ing to a scientist on contract to the SVCP, "The program is structurally not open. The methods by which deci- sions are made are designed to con- centrate power within the SVCP." Al- though all contracts awarded by the SVCP are reviewed by the segment working groups, on which outside sci- entists are represented, these commit- tees are said to function as rubber stamps for decisions already made by SVCP administrators. Ruhert J. Huebner George J. Todaro, Jr. iim

Almost universal is the criticism that, for lack of outside advice and the checks and balances that govern other research programs, the principal offi- cers of the SVCP have too much power. "I feel enormous uneasiness about the power the branch chiefs wield," says a virologist under contract to the SVCP. "It's just plain wrong. If some check cannot be put on them, then we are going to see an incredible fiasco should their judgment prove wrong." Huebner, Todaro, and Mana- ker each control sums of money that equal or exceed the $6 million disposed of by the entire NIH virology study section in fiscal 1971. Almost all research supported by the NIH is financed by grants, which are allocated by a system of peer re- view and are not tied down to specific objectives. By contrast; the SVCP dis- tributes all its monies in the form of contracts, which are not subject to peer review. This applies not only to clearly definable projects such as the preparation of viruses or the collection of human tissue specimens, but also to research work that, in many instances, is no different in kind from that sup- ported by the grant system. The SVCP's exclusivee reliance on contracts is considered one of its more unpop- ular features in the academic world. One virologist explains, "Most of the people making the top decisions at the SVCP are not top scientists. They are allocating enormous amounts of money on the basis of relatively little knowl- edge. But to make scientific decisions of this nature is a complicated and chancy business. The reason why the peer review system grew up is that no one individual can make these deci- sions intelligently." Academic scientists point out that most of the important discoveries in cancer virology made in recent years have come from scientists working on grants, not SVCP contracts. "If you delete most of the work financed un- der contract to the SVCP, we would be almost as far along the road as we are now," is the verdict of one well- known virologist. " There have been lots of advances lately, but I don't know if I could assign any of them to this particular program," says a scien- tist intimately acquainted with the pro- gram's affairs. Another intimate of the SVCP concludes that nothing done on contract could not have been done on research grants at one-sixth to one- tcnIth ofl t}tle~p cost. II 1, ~I II, I, ' I Many outside scientists criticize what y they consider to be the waste and poor quality of much contract research. The standard of SVCP contracts seems to have improved markedly in the last few years-many eminent virologists now have contracts with the program -and it probably no longer happens that applications considered not worthy of support by the NIH virology studies section receive SVCP support. But many of the 120 contracts currently let by the SVCP still arouse less than unanimous enthusiasm. Three Look-alike Branches How does the SVCP look from the inside? To the untutored eye there is little difference in the character of the contracts controlled by the three branch chiefs, and everyone concerned gives slightly different answers. Ac- cording to Rauscher, Manaker looks after resources and research on herpes- type viruses, Todaro is. concerned with the molecular biology of C-type vi- ruses, and Huebner's interests are in viral serology, epidemiology, and chemical-viral cocarcinogenesis. Ac- cording to Manaker, "My, segment is tapered towards investigations involv- ing specificatly human probl'ems. Huebner started off with DNA viruses, - then shifted to RNA viruses and has spent a considerable amount of his time looking at the natural history of cancer :" Huebner's perspective is that he and Todaro do not do the same things but "leapfrog" each other; Manaker is responsible "for herpes, for a lot of resources, and for Spiegel- man." Todaro says that his program puts more emphasis on basic molecular biology than the other branches do. He denies that there is any duplication between his program and Huebner's- "Huebner and I do in practice coordi- nate our work, and if there is any com- petition with Huebner's branch it is a very healthy one." Another opinion, given by a scientist close to Huebner's part of the program, is this: "There is hardly any difference in subject matter between the three chiefs. You might say Manaker was more into herpes, but it isn't really true. The real dif- ference is one of style. Huebner feels that scientific input should come from in-house, meaning largely him, and he is exceptionally good at suggesting ideas for people to do and at seeing that his contractors communicate with each other. So his segment is really rather well controlled. Manaker man- lalgesll jcont,rW;tcts hillw'h,cr'cvlbPRno Ipar,ticular scientific input is required from him. His contracts are a hodgepodge-if they interconnect, no one has ever seen the interconnection." The same scientist adds: "The bulk of the pro- gram is still a bunch of really worthless junk, such as injecting monkeys with God knows what and other holdovers from the early days of the program." As far as this reporter has been able to discern, there are, in effect, two dif- ferent SVCP's, neither of which has very much to do with the other except for the sharing of resources. Both pro- grams have their good points, but both are probably the worse off for being largely closed to genuine outside re- view. One program is that adminis- tered by Huebner and Todaro, both of whom actively participate in the re- search they direct and have clear ideas of the direction in which they wish the program to go. ("The SVCP is how I feel about cancer," says Huebner.) The other program is that directed by the scientist-administrators such as Rauscher (when he was chairman), Moloney, and Manaker. All three are distinguished scientists, though none is still active in the laboratory as are Huebner and Todaro. Indications that the two camps op- erate largely independently are not hard to find. The three recent claims to have found candidate human vi- ruses are a case in point. The candi- date human cancer virus announced in July this year was discovered in the laboratory of one of Manaker's con- tractors, Leon Dmochowski of the M. D. Anderson Institute in Houston (the Institute's contract is at present $600.- 000 a year; since 1965 it has received some $2.7 million from the SVCP).Whereupon laboratories in the Hueb- ner-Todaro program quickly proved to their own satisfaction that the virus was in fact a mouse virus that had contaminated . the cell culture. (Independent. tests now make this ver- dict rather less certain.) Huebner is said to have obtained samples of the Dmochowski virus after writing a memorandum to Carl Baker. director of the NCI, urging that, because ot the numbers of people dying daily of cancer and the research funds bein-expended thereon, Dmochowski not be allowed to sit on his virus. Earlier this month, scientists at the University of Southern California medical school. which holds a $1,600,000 contract from Huebner, announced thnt they had released a candidate human virus afGcr groiving llohui*in', Ilca'nd,dr I't:dlls ~ ih cats. Scientists in the other camp 1308 crTr.v.-r -n. . - .

naturally refer to the USC virus as a cat virus, but more serious evidence of rivalry was a second claim to have discovered a human virus, announced simultaneously and in direct reaction to the USC claim by scientists at Georgetown University under contract to another segment chairman, W. Ray Bryan. (Both claims were announced before appearing inLthe. scientific litera- ture.) Although it would doubtless be inapposite for SVCP management to try to control the release of informa- tion by their contractors, closer co- ordinatiori between the two rival camps could at least establish a set of mini- mum criteria for announcing a human cancer virus. A more serious lack of management control is evident in the segment work- ing panels that are supposed to review all SVCP contracts. Rauscher and Mo- loney point to the existence of these panels as evidence of outside review. Most of the panels draw half of their members from the NCI staff and half from outside, but in practice it is al- most impossible for the outside scien- tists to vote down a contract of which they disapprove. According to one panel member, whose account is confirmed by a second member of the same panel, the voting procedure on contracts is that a favorable vote may be given without explanation, an abstention counts with the majority (in effect, as an affirmative vote), but negative votes must be jus- tified in writing. Since materials relating to a contract are often distributed only on the morning of the panel's meeting, members have to read and listen simul- taneously; thus, the segment chairman, who can usually count on the votes of the NCI members, is rarely overruled. "The outside consultants are likely to end up approving things after the fact," says a former panel member, who indi- cates that most of the decisions on con- tracts are taken by segment chairmen before the working panel meets. B riIs fin g employment and to strive for a stronger voice for bench scientists in corporate personnel policies. "There's a fairly broad feeling, and not only among chemists, that com- panies have almost completely washed Chemists Pick Nixon Alan C. Nixon, the maverick chemist from Berkeley who wants the American Chemical Society to take a inore active interest in its members' livelihood, has won the presidency of the 110,000- member ACS by a lopsided margin. As president-elect, Nixon will not take office until 1973. But next month he joins the society's board of directors and will remain on the influential board for the next 3 years. A genial man of 63, Nixon has spent nearly his entire career as a researcher and a research supervisor for the Shell Development Company near Berkeley. He left Shell in 1970 and is now a consultant. . As a dark-horse candidate last fall, Nixon broke society tradition and cam- paigned vigorously for its presidency (Science, 24 Sept.). Backed by a small organization called the "Chemical Grassroots," he distributed campaign leaflets and toured nearly a third of the society's 174 local sections. Along the way he built a platform on what he saw as the professional needs of chemists caught in a national economic recession-the need for organizations like the ACS to work to alleviate un- their hands' of responsibility for tech- nical employees," Nixon says. "Indus- try doesn't talk to technical employees as they do to hourly, unionized erri- ployees. But why should we be treated differently?" He obviously struck an appealing chord. A record 44,300 ACS members sent mail ballots into the society's Washington headquarters in Novem- ber. Nixon snared just under half the total votes, with the remainder divided about evenly between the two front- running candidates, William A. Mosher of the University of Delaware and George S. Hammond of Caltech. The ACS now devotes most of its money and energy to publishing books, journals, and Chemical Ab- stracts, and to running a variety of educational programs in chemistry. Over the past 2 years, the society has also taken a new interest in employee- employer relationships and, as one measure of this "interest, is currently spending an average of $500 for each jobless member who seeks help in finding work. But these stirrings have not been vigorous enough to satisfy Alan Nixon and his supporters. Another awkward feature of the working panels as founts of independent advice is the practice of having con- tractors -as panel members. Asked how panel members were selected, Rauscher told Science that Huebner, for example, will ask his panel members to suggest names of outside scientists, which are then submitted for approval first to Mo- loney, then to Rauscher, and finally to Baker. The membership of Hueb- ner's working panel, as approved by Moloney, Rauscher, and Baker, is as follows: Maurice Green, St. Louis Uni- versity, holder of a $750,000 contract from Huebner's segment; Leonard Hay- flick, Stanford University, holder of a $175,000 contract from Huebner's seg- ment; Karl Hellstrom, University of Washington, holder of an $83,000 con- tract from Huebner's segment; Ed-win Lennette, California Department of Public Health, holder of a $33,000 con- tract from Huebner's segment; Hans Meier, Jackson Laboratories, holder of As president-elect, Nixon says he intends to begin prodding the society and its staff into making "selective contacts" with state and federal legis- lators to encourage the flow of money into job and other relief programs for out-of-work chemists. He says he doesn't want the ACS to engage in a "large lobbying effort " but he thinks that a shift of 5 percent of its budget, or about $1.5 million, into various pro- fessional activities would be appropri- ate. Later on, he said, he will work to foster new and more comprehensive working agreements between chemists and their corporate employers to do "more than protect patent rights." He has also expressed an interest i.n lim- iting the number of chemists in the nation, perhaps, if necessary, by insti- tuting a system of professional licens- ing and by controlling the number of licenses. "My election is certainly no reason for the society's 'establishment' to stand up and cheer," he admits. "I'm obviously not a typical president-elect, and my views differ from others the ACS has had. But I'm not advocating that we tear down the society's edu- cational and scientific arms. I simply want to step up our professional activ- ities. I think our board understands that this is what the members want." -R.G. 24 DECEMBER 1971 1309

a $299,000 contract from Huebner's segment; Joseph Melnick, Baylor Uni- versity, holder of an $800,000 contract from Manaker's segment; and two NCI staff members. The panel's one inde- pendent voice is Wallace P. Rowe of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectio'us Diseases. The free-for-all over the candidate human cancer viruses and the setup of the segment working panels raises the question of who runs the SVCP. Several sources state that Moloney, the formal head of the program, cannot control Huebner because of Huebner's close re- lationship with Baker; Moloney does the best he can within the rules set by Baker, these sources say. In fact, there may be some advantage in the diversity allowed by the lack of central control. Scientists in the Huebner-Todaro camp like to de- pict the Manaker-Moloney-Rauscher part of the program-called for conven- ience the administrators' SVCP-as a ragbag of unproductive contracts based on outmoded approaches. This is closer to parody than truth; the administrative part of the program may not have the same drive and sense of direction as the Huebner-Todaro part, but the average standard of its contracts has in the last 2 years improved considerably, scien- tists both within and outside the pro- gram say. This is partly because of the scarcity of funds from other sources, partly because of deliberate efforts to recruit good scientists by Moloney, Manaker, and a member of Manaker's staff, Timothy E. O'Connor. Manaker's contracts now include a number of dis- tinguished scientists such as the group under J. Thomas August at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine ($498,- 000), the Hanafersu tit.am at the PubiEic Health Research Institute of the City of New York ($159,000), G eorge Klein at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm ($73,000), Fred Rapp at Pennsylvania State University ($292,000), and Sol Spiegelman at Columbia University ($800,000). The contracts under Huebner differ from Manaker's in that many of them are viewed by Huebner simply as ex- tensions of his in-house laboratories. The unusual arrangement of Huebner acting both as an administrator and as an active scientist is a mixed blessing. On the credit side is that he is well regarded in, both roles. "The real trouble with the program is that it has only on Huebner, not five or six," says a prominent critic of the SVCP. "Hueb- ner's contracts have been more success- ful be'c~use he is a good mzha;er and because he has a very good intuition, which is important in science," this critic adds. The disadvantage of Huebner's dual role as scientist and administrator is that he is put in the position of award- ing or denying research support in a field in which he has an active personal interest. He and Todaro are felt by many scientists involved in the SVCP to be more concerned with the success of their own research interests than with the welfare of the program as a whole. "Huebner is very active at trying to get the best part of every pie. I have heard him pooh-pooh things simply -because they weren't part of his pro- gram," says one SVCP contractor. Many virologists are alarmed at the "unidirectional" approach of the SVCP, or at least •the Huebner-Todaro part of it, which seems designed almost ex- clusively to provide support for the oncogene theory, a set of ideas that have been vigorously espoused by Huebner. The publicity-tinged style of Hueb- ner's operation, his practice of signing papers written by contractors in far- distant laboratories (in fact contract- ing scientists tend to add Huebner's name to their papers on a Herr Profes= sor basis, and Huebner does often con- tribute significant ideas), a recent inci- dent in which scientists in Huebner's camp (Todaro and Aaronson) risked depriving another scientist (Rowe) of priority for an important technique, and indeed the general style of Huebner's operation, have all engendered a certain sourness toward the SVCP in academic circles. Much of the hostility caused by Huebner's domination tends to fall, unfairly, on the heads aF the other ad- ministrators. "The real culprit for all this is Baker," says one scientist con- nected with the program. Pace of Discovery The flair of the Huebner-Todaro ap- proach offers a viable and probably nec- essary alternative to the less dirigiste part of the program controlled by the administrators. Nevertheless, it seems open to question, certainly by the aca- demic community, as to exactly what the SVCP has achieved that could not have been done equally well by the grant program. Two lines of research which the Huebner-Todaro part of the program has backed heavily in the last year and a half are work on the reverse transcriptase enzyme possessed by RNA tumor viru es, «•hich was d~s,coveruldll ta}~ 1ioi~ar~l T~iiliii ~nd David Baitimore (neither of whom was on SVCP funds at the time, though the program sup- plied Baltimore with virus) and the group-specific antigens of C-type (gs) viruses first discovered by Huebner and colleagues in 1964. Huebner states that the pace of dis- covery is proceeding "10 to 20 times faster than it would without the SVCP." In fact, it is probably too early to say whether the hectic pace imposed by Huebne'r's methods of massed labora- tory attack on a problem will really speed solutions to basic problems. For example, he and other SVCP officials claim that as a result of SVCP empha- sis, "The reverse transcriptase story is worked out to an extent that would have taken 10 years under the grant pro- gram." But scientists outside the pro- gram are not so sure. Rauscher proudly claims that the SVCP made available $4.5 million of virus for researchers studying the enzyme. "It was because of this that all this terrible work appeared in the last year," says a scientist prom- inent in the reverse transcriptase field. Several virologists believe that under a grant program the reverse transcriptase would have unfolded at a slower but sounder pace. There seems to be greater consensus that Huebner's fantastically expensive work on viral gs antigens- to make 1 gram of antigen, which is enough to raise antibodies in ten guinea pigs, costs about $1 million-would stand little chance of being funded un- der a grant program and is a plus for the contract mechanism. As for the administrators' part of the SVCP, there have certainly been suc- cesses in the past, notably the far- sighted provision for mass producing s iru^ses before the research d'elnand developed. The SVCP supported the work of the Henles on EB virus and mononucleosis, and SVCP contractors (including Huebner before he joined the program) helped to largely rule out DNA viruses, such as the 31 adeno- viruses (which are oncogenic in ani- mals), as causes of cancer in man. Be- • cause of SVCP support, the number of viruses known to cause cancer in ani- mals now totals more than 100. Yet apart from the SVCP's provision of re- sources, acadenlic critics of the SVCP are not obviously wrong in claiming that nearly all of these advances could have been supported more efficiently on grants instead of the despised contract mechanism. Administrators of the SVCP, such as NIlalqrtc;yi R.a~t~sichlcr, a~d IGlio JBh,IiGori,~ Ral~scher's pl:ulning du•ecfor, tend to 1310 SCIfiNCE, 'VOL. 1'4

0 F . N discount all outside dissatisfaction with the SVCP by attacking the motives of their critics. Certainly the academic community harbors no natural liking for the contract mechanism and planned research of the type represented by the SVCP. But instead of trying to counter the antipathy by exposing the program to outside advice, the higher echelons of the SVCP hier3rchy seem instead to have retreated to a closed world of charts and systems analyses, where cancer vaccines can be developed in f five phases and three subphases. The charts, which are regarded as a harm- less absurdity by the active scientists in the program, are symptomatic of the NCI administrators' divorce from reality, of their failure to provide scien- tific direction for the SVCP, and to straighten out its organizational confu- sion. But to let outside air into the SVCP, to switch some of the research- type contracts over to a grant mecha- nism, to start a sensible training pro- gram, and to switch more resources to Chile: Trying to Cultivate Small Base of. Technical Excellence Santiago, Chile. A successful candi- date for the Chilean presidency in the 1930's stood on the simple platform, "Bread, a Roof, and Shelter." President Allende's manifesto in last September's election was a good deal more complex than that, but the issues for the majority of people in Chile remain simple. To the casual visitor, Chile is a country blessed with all the advantages-good climate, fertile soil, and at least some -of the comforts of modern technology. In the pleasant suburbs of Santiago, it is not too difficult to forget the sub- merged mass of the people, those who voted for bread and shelter in the 1930's and for Salvador Allende in 1970. Chile's needs in science and technol- ogy reflect the political realities more closely than is the case in many devel- oped countries. One can produce a science policy simply from the balance sheet of foreign trade. For years Chile has had to import food. Despite the fertile central region, large numbers of her 9.5 million people are, -by any standards, underfed. The need to in- creas-- Chile's domestic production of food is now urgent, since foreign ex- change is short, the external debt needs refinancing, and wage increases have sent many of the poor clamoring for a better diet. On the other side of the ledger, it is important to increase cop- per exports, which make up •more than 80 percent of Chile's foreign exchange earnings and , hich arc,Ilnow, £pr tY~e first time cntircly in the control of Chileans. There is also a need to in- crease the efficiency of manufacturing industry, but in a way that does not reduce employment opportunities. So- cialist Chile, with 150,000 people out of work, has little need of technology that increases production only at the cost of jobs. These aims are easily jotted down, but putting them into practice is an- other matter. Chile's universities tend to concentrate on pure science, little of which is likely to be relevant to the needs of an underdeveloped country. Chile is an important center for re- search in optical astronomy because of the exceptional viewing conditions in the coastal moarntasins of the north. There are four major international ob- servatories in the Chilean Andes, and three big telescopes are under construc- tion. But as basic science, astronomy does not contribute significantly to the country's technological development or to employment. The United States is participating minimally in Chile's tech- nological development; it has no formal, bilateral scientific agreement with Chile such as the one recently concluded with Brazil and the one soon to be signed with Argentina. The National Academy of Sciences has been conducting workshop discussions between U.S. and Chilean scientists on how to coordinate scien- tific work with government planning, but these are not seen as a prelude to any new cooperative programs. There is I alf ,npst no I d,on~~ ~ esticaliy in- II ~~,k i i~i I spireci technology-industry does no re- 24 DECEMBER 1971 basic cell biology, are approaches that seem politically foreclosed. Says a vi- rologist close to the SVCP, "The NIH heads have tried so hard to persuade Congress that everything was ready, they are not now in a position to take the long-term view." The moonshot design of the SVCP was from the start a gam- ble that cancer would prove to have a short-term solution, in the form of a viral cause and a vaccine cure. But many biologists believe a longer-term view is necessary.-NICHOLAS WADE search at all-and for years Chile has depended on the international commun- ity, through U.N. agencies or bilateral agreements, to provide funds for tech- nological development. The result has been to provide Chile with a small core of technical institutes that can, in principle at least, carry out their own development programs. All too often, however, these institutes have failed to make the transition from United Nations development programs (UNDP) to full- fledged national laboratories once the technical assistants have pulled out. The confusions of politics, the difficulties of supplying manpower, the simple failure of will-all have something to do with this. Furthermore, it is by no means certain yet that Chileans recognize the importance of supporting the few cen- - ters of technical competence the coun- try possesses. Chile's major technical institute, the Instituto Technologica (INTECH) was set up by CORFO, the country's devel- opment corporation, in 1968. The origi- nal concept for the institute, which has laboratories in a beautiful setting in the foothills near Santiago, was to carry out research for industry under con- tract. But industries that do no research themselves are usually unwilling to pay anyone else for doing it for them, and more tha n 90 percent of INTECH's funds (now $1.1 million a year) have come directly from CORFO. INTECH now employs 120 people, 70 of them professionals, and is expanding rapidly, with laboratories, pilot plants, and new buildings going up next year. Like other branches of the Chilean government since the Allende victory last year, INTECH still seems to be seeking an identity. In true Chilean fashion, almost all of the senior ofti- cials were replaced after the election laslt,yca~,,,anld the result hasl becylcon- fusion. Asioni5hiin-clas it may seem, the 1311