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Science COVER STORIES 0 Crisis in The Labs Beset by a budget squeeze, cases of fraud, relentless activists and a skeptical public, American researchers are under siege Sy LEtIN L1ROF[ ti'ulwur scienrific progress the narloncl healrh would dtreriorate; w(thour scientifrc progresr we could not hope for rmprmKment in our emndard of litvtg or fo. an i'ncreasrd nwnbcr of jobs for o+v ciriuns; and without scienrific progreaa a+e eould not hase main- taintd owlibmiea ogainst rymrtny. -Vannevar Bush, presidential science adviser fn Science: The EnEless Fn>nder, 1945 I t was the glory of America. In the decades following World War II; U.S. science reigned supreme, earn- ing the envy of the world with one stunning triumph after another. Fos- tered by the largesse of a government swayed by Vannevar Bush's paean to sci- ence, it harnessed the power of the atom, conquered polio and discovered the earih's radiation belt It created the laser, the transistor, the microchip and the elec- tronie computer, broke the genetic code and conjured up the miracle of recombi- nant ndw technology. It described the fun- damental nature of matter, solved the mys- tery of the quasars and designed the robot craft that explored distant planets with spectacular success. And, as promised, it landed a man on the moon. Now a sea change is occurring, and it does not bode well for researchers-or for the US. While American science remains productive and still excels in many arees, its exalted and almost pristine image is be- ginning to tarnish. European and, to a lesser extent. Japa- nese scientists have begun to surpass their American counterparts. In the U.S. the sci- entific community is beset by a budget squeeze and bureaucratic demands, inter- nal squabbling, harassment by activists, embarrassing cases of fraud and faflure, , and the growing alienation of Congress ; and the public. In the last decade of the 20th century, U.S, science, once unassaH- able, hnds itself in a virtual state of siege. "The science community is demoral- ized, and its moans ara frightening off the young," saysDc Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health (rrm). "You have never seen such a depressed collecti.on of people," says Stephen Berry, a University of Chicago chemist "It's the worst atmosphere in the scientific commu- nity since I began my career more than 30 yearsago" In public perception, at least, that at- mosphere has been fouled by a multitude of headline-grabbing incidents: 'The federal researcher at whose urging Times Beach, Mo., was permanently evac- uated in 1982 because of a dioart scare has conceded that the draconian action was a mistake and that newer data suggest dioxin is far less toxic than previously believed. While some environmental scientists dis- pute the conclusion, the Environmental Protection Agency has launched a review of its strict dioxin standards, leaving the public confused about what to believe. •In space, the inexcusable myopia of the S 1S billion Hubble telescope, the balky an- tenna that endangers the $1.3 billion Gali- leo mission to Jupiter, and even the Cha6 lengerdisaster and the shuttle's subsequent troubles gave space science a bad name- notwithstanding the fact that the failures resulted not from scientific errors but largely from managerial blunders and bud- getary constraints. .The circus atmosphere that accompanied last year's announcement that cold fusion bad been achieved, the subsequent debate among scientista and the eventual wide- spread rejection of the claim evoked public 45

1 • I I I I 1 116 exasperation and ridicule in the press. .Nobel laureate David Baltimore's stub- born refusal to concede that data reported by a former M.L2 colleague in an Immu- nology paper Baltimore had co-signed was fraudulent, and the shoddy treatment of the whistle blower who spotted the fraud aroused public suspicion about scientific integrity. Worse, from the viewpoint of sci- entists, it brought about an investigation by Michigan Democrat John Dingell's House subcommittee and fears of more federal supervision of science. By the time Balti- more finally apologized for his role in the affair, the damage to science's image had been done. •Another Dingell probe, which revealed that Stanford University had charged some strange items to overhead expenses funded by federal science grants, mortified univer- sity president Donald Kennedy, led to his resignation and raised questions about misuse of funds at other universities. "I challenge you to tell me," said Dingell, "how fruitwood commodes, chauffeurs for the university president's wife, housing for dead university officials, retreats in Lake Tahoe and floviers for the president's house are supportive of science." P A long-running and unseemly dispute be- tween Dr. Luc Montagnierofthe Pasteurln- stitute in Paris and Dr. Robert Gallo of the tatx overwho had first identified the nIDs vi- rus raised public doubts about the motives and credibility of scientists. Those concerns remained when Gallo conceded that through inadvertent contamination, the vi- rus he identified had been isolated from a sample sent him by the Frenchman. Last week thejoumal Science revealed that adraft of a forthcoming Nut report about the affair criticizes Gallo and accuses one of his col- leagues of scientific miscondttet. • Bowing to the demands of pro-lifers, the Bush Administration continued a ban on federal funding for fetal-cell transplants, despite the fact that the use of such tissue has shown promising results in treating Parkinson's disease and other disorden. Frustrated U.S. researchers watched help- lessly as their European counterparts moved ahead an medical applications of fetal tissue. ~ In several raids on research laboratories, animal-rights activists destroyed equip- ment and "liberated" test animals, setting back experiments designed to improve medical treatment for humans. Activists using legal means, such as picketing and newspaper ads, successfully brought pres- sure on some laboratories to improve treatment of test animals. But others cam- paigned to halt virtually all animal experi- mentation, a ban that would cripple medi- cal research. At1 told, the animals-rights movement has led to a false public percep- tion that medical researchers are generally callous in their treatment of test animals or at least indifferent to their welfare, 46 SeiaMcs •Although gadfly activist Jeremy Rifkin failed in a legal attempt to delay the first human-gene-therapy experiment last year, he skillfully used the courts to set back by months, and even years, other scientific tri- als involving genetically engineered organ- isms or substances. His success in obstruct- ing genetic experiments came despite the fact that in every case, his warnings of dire consequences proved to be unfounded. Fa- vorable coverage of his views in some newspapers and on TV heightened public misgivings about genetic research. To many researchers, howev- er, the single greatest threat to U.S. science, and a source of many of its troubles, is money--0r a lack of it. That view came into sharp focus in January when No- bel laureate physicist Leon lsder- man, the newly elected president of the prestigious American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science, issued what he called his "cry of alarm." Lederman, former head of Fermilab, the high-energy physics center in Illinois, had conducted a survey of research scientists in 50 universities. Most of the nearly 250 responses, he reported, came from demoralized and under- funded researchers who foresaw only a bleak future for their disci- plines and their jobs. "I haven't seen anything ltite this in my 40 years in science," Lederman said. "Research, at least the research carried out in universities, is in very serious trouble." And that, he warned, "raises serious ques- tions about the very futnre of sci- ence in the U.S." By Lederman's calculations, if inflation is taken into account, federal funding in 1990 for both basic and applied scientific ro- search in universities was only 20% higher than in 1968, while the number of Ph.D: level scien- tists working at the schools dou- bled during the same time period. In other words, twice as many re- searchers are scrambling for smaller pieces of a slightly bigger pie. The competition for financing has forced scientists into fund- raising efforts at the expense of research and has led to angry ex- changes over what kind of work should have priority. It has also forced researchers to propose "safe" projects with an obvious end product. Those restraints are clearly detrimental to the bold and inno- vative research that has made American science great. Leder- rUAE. AUCUSr u, tset man's solution: "We should be spendin twice as much as we did in 1968." For his alarm, and especially for h proposed cure, Lederman was not immed ately overwhelmed by acclaim-eithe from fellow scientists or from Congres The Bush Administration had already re quested a generous increase in the acieno budget, critics noted. Lederman's call for. doubling of financial support at a time o severe budgetary restraint, they charged made scientists seem petty and self-servin: and suggested that they are out of tour1 with the country's political realities. In fact I 2074144004

Science I sources in space; and the Earth Observing System for weather and pollution studies. Scientists were dismayed. Daniel It7eppner, an M.I.T. physicist, pointed out that the money spent on the space station this year will be almost as much as the total fiscal 1990 NSF budget, a major source of federal funding for all the sciences except biomedicine. Writing in The Sciences, the publication of the New York Academy of Sciences, he expressed his indignation: "It seems incredible that the government can spend billions on such flawed projects while allowing the world's greatest scientif- ic institutions to decline for lack of rela- tively modest funds." By one standard, at least, the troubles of American science are not that obvious at first glance: the Nobel science awards for the past few decades have been dominated by Americans. For example, 14 of the 25 Nobel Prizes for Physics between 1980 and 1990 went to Americans. But 13 of those 14 awards were for work done many years ago. Most of the Nobels for more recent research have gone to Europeans. "It ap- pears that American science is eoasting on its reputation," says Kleppner. "Today Eu- rope is beginning to run away with the honors." Physics is not the only discipline that is I hurting. Harvard's pioneering biologist I E.O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, is concerned that the dwindling supply of il federal grant money to individual scientists is changing the very nature of research. A ~ quarter-century ago, he says, grants were ~ far more generous, and a higher percent- I age of proposals got funded. "In those days," he recalls. "a young scientist could i still get a grant based on a promising but I partly formulated idea or fragmentary re- BIG VENTURES THAT SWALLOW DOLLARS BY THE BILLIONS S'x.. ~~.~V .. . ~ 5 . . .. - ..-- . .. , . . )'1.7r:.... ~'._ " _.... ... . __ ' '- . ... ~ . ... 4_.. . • 48 TIME.AUGUSr241991 2074144005

! only last year cangressional budgeteers ~ agreed to limit spending growth for domes- tic discretionary funding, in eHect making science a "zero-sum" category. This meant that increases for one scientific project, for example, might have to come out of the ; hide of another. I "I don't think that [Lederman's] argu- ~i ment was very good," says Harvey Brooks, ~ a Harvard science-policy expert. "Scien- ~ tists are having a hard time, and so are the I homeless. You have to justify science be- cause it is doing something good for soci- ety." Even Frank Press, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), agrees on the need for restraint. "No na- tion can wdte a blank check for science," he says. "In a very tight deficit year, we may have to make some choicea" fn June the House of Representatives made a choice, and it did not sit well with scientuts. The House voted to designate 51.9 billion of rtASA's fiscal 1992 budget to continued work on the proposed space sta- tion, which could eventually eost as much as S40 billion. Because of the budgetary re- straints, that money may be cut from other projects supported by NASA and the Na- tional Science Foundation (itsn). And two huge science ventures are already siphon- ing off significant chunks of the federal budget: the Human Crenome Project, a 15- TIME, AuOUBC 2Q 1991 year, $3 billion program to identify and map all 50,000 to 100,000 genes and deter- mine the sequence of the 3 billion code let- ters in human ot+A; and the superconduct- ing supercollider, a high-energy particle accelerator to be built in Texas at an esti- mated cost of $8.2 billion. Several planned NASA science projecu could immediately suffer or even be elimi- nated because of the space-station vote. They include the Comet Rendezvous As- teroid Flyby mission, in which an un- manned spacecraft would make close ap- proaches to Comet Kopff and an unnamed asteroid; the Advanced X-Ray Astrophys- fa Facility, which will investigate X-ray 47

I 5 0 0 0 sult." Today, Wilson laments, there is tat less interest in funding such marginal and daring proposals. Physicist Nicholas Samios, di- rector of Brookhaven National i Laboratory on New York's Long Island, has also witnessed a nega- ~ tive effect among people on his ~ staff. "When funding gets tight," ' he says, "people get more conser- ~ vative and bureaucratic. You don't want to make mistakes. You want to make certain you do the right thing. But to have science flourish, you want people who take chances." These days scientists often pick their fields of research with an eye to the whims of funding agencies. That was precisely what I Jim Koh, a University of Michigan graduate student in human genet- ics, had in mind when he chose to specialize in cystic fibrosis. Re- search on the disorder, funded in part by the private Cystic Fibrosis Foundat on, is less affected by federal • udget problems than many other fields. "Fundability is a real factor in my thinking," Koh admits. Other young scientists are not so fortunate. University jobs are hard to fmd, and because of tight budgets will not become more plentiful until the older profes- sors, the majority of them hired in the bountiful, go-go 1960s. retire. When a university slot does open, hundreds of graduate students may apply for it. Industry too has little to offer newly graduated sci- entists. entists. Saddled with debt and un- der pressure to turn out favorable ' quarterly reports, it has cut back on money spent for research and development. All this is disillusioning to promising young uientists. At 34, Norman Carlin, an evolutionary biologist who has been a postdoctoral fellow at Har- vard since 1986, is giving up. "Last year I decided I would go through one more year of this fruitless and humiliating attempt to get work," he says. "Well, I didn't get a sin- gle job offer from 20 universities-and I got into every law school I applied to. So I decided to go where I was wanted for a change." When he earns a law degree, Car- lin hopes to specialize in environmental law. "I had tremendous fun doing science," he says, "and I'm bitterly sorry I won't be able todo it anymore." All too aware of the dearth of job op portunities at research universities, senior faculty members are faced with a dilemma. "When undergraduates come to me look- ing for career advice," says Dr. James Wil- son, a gene-therapy expert at the Universi- ty of Michigan, "I have to think long and hard about advising them to be scientists." Justified as it is, that kind of thinking alarma M.I.T's Kleppner. "If America's senior scientists cannot, in good con- science, persuade the next generation to follow in their own footsteps;" he wams, "the nation is finished scientifically." Money is so tight that many scientific institutions are finding it difficult to main- tain the equipment they have, much less buy new instrumenu. At Kitt Peak in Ari- zona, the structure of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories' solar telescope was beginning to corrode because astrono- mers, strapped for funds, had put off paint- ing it. This year they could wait no longer, and instead of buying a new, badly needed S1f1o,00o infrared detector, they put the available money into a paint job. The choice, while necessary, depresses Sidney Wolff, director of HoAo. Although the in- TIME,At1GtfSr26,199t frared detector was developed in the U.S., she says, "European observatories can af• ford to purchase it, while we cannot. This is really a revolution in technology; if you're using five-year-old technology, you're out of the game." The budget constraints are part of an even deeper problem afflicting American research: Congress is reflecting an erosion of public confidence in a scientific estab- lishment that not many years ago could seemingly do no wrong. The message from Washington is etear. science will receive no more blank checks and will be held increas- ingly accountable for both its performance and its behavior. Today, despite continuing brilliant work by U.S. scientists, attention seems fo- cused on their failings and excesses, both real and perceived. Why, critics ask after a decade of effort, have researchers not 49

s . • found a cure for wms, or why can't they fig- ure out, after nearly a balf<entury, how to store nuclear wastes safely or build space- craft that work? Why do they concoct com- pounds that end up as toxic waste or court danger by tinkering with genes? Some of this burgeoning antiscience sentiment springs from the well-meaning but naive "back to nature" wing of the en- vironmental movement, some from skillful manipulation by demagogues and modern- day Luddites. And some is misdirected; sci- ence is often blamed for the misdeeds of industry and government. But scientists too must shoulder their share of the blame. Cases of outright fraud and waste, sloppy research, dubious claims and public bickering have made science an easy target for itscritia. Says Marcel LaFol- lette, a professor of international science policy at George Washington Un'wersity: "One of the threads that run through all this is a refusal by the science community to ao knowledge that there iti a problem. They 50 continue with the attitude that scientists are part of the Elite and they deserve special po- litical treatment and handling." In Washington the new sock-it-to-sci- ence stance is personified by Congressman Dingell, who has taken the lead in investi- gating the wrongdoings of researchen. Many scientists consider his intrusion into their domain dangerous because it threat- ens their long-held notion that science should be self-governed, self-regulated and self-policed. When Dingell asked the Secret Service to examine the notebooks in the Baltimore case for authenticity, anme re- searchers accused him of launching a witch hunt and trying to establish "science po- lice." Because of his badgering of scientists at congressional hearings, he has been charged with practicing McCarthyism. Says Maxine Singer, a molecular biologist and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: "With Dingell, the issues get swallowed as he makes personal attacks on peopte." TIbtE.AUGUSr26.199t Despite DingelPs abrasive manner, however, he has rooted out some serious abuses in science. The Congressman makes a legitimate argument that science is a social tool and should be directed and regulated in the same manner as other so- cial tools, such as defense and education. A newly contrite Baltimore now says Din- gell's investigation was "an altogether proper exercise of his mandate to oversee the expenditure of federal funds." This month Dingell was at it again. He hauled ntx director Healy before his sub- committee to charge that by abruptly transferring a chief investigator of the Nmt's internal office of scientific integrity, she had "derailed" investigations and "de- moralized and emasculated" that office, which had been involved in the Baltimore case. Healy indignantly called the charges "preposterous," adding that Dingell "is a prosecutor. He's there to root out evil, whether it's there oc not." Underlying the current furor over 2074144008

funding, and fueling Dingell's investiga- tions, are the implicit assumptions that sci- ence can no longer be fully trusted to man- age its affairs and that society should have a larger voice in its workings. "We can't just say Give us the money and don't both- er us anymore," acknowledges Chris Quigg, a physicist at Fermilab. Congressional pressure on science has been countered by a growing pressure on Congress-by institutions and researchers lobbying for science funds. Influencing the lawmakers has become so critical that sci- ence is recruiting the professionals of per- suasion. Many universities pay $20,000 a month each for the services of Cassidy & Associates, a science-lobbying firm that has been successful in getting federal mon- ey earmarked for its clients. Some of Cas- sidy's trophies: $15 million for 1Lfb Uni- versity's Human Nutrition Research Center and $19.8 million for the Proton Beam Demonstration Center at Califor- nia's Loma Linda University. Four bIo- chemiatry societies have joined to pay for- mer Maine Congressman Peter Kyros $100,000 a year to lobby for increased funding for biomedical research. Unfortu- nately, money appropriated for these pro- jects bypasses the peer-review process used by such scientific bodies as the NSF and the NIH. Too often, science lobbyists find easy pickings on Capitol Hill, where Congress- men, courting votes, can win generous sums for research projects in their home districts by simply slipping riders onto ap- propriation billt. Federal legislators in fis- cal 1991 approved at leaat S270 million for pork-barrel science projetxs, In many cases, this kind of financing supports pro- jects of dubious value, while more worthy endeavors go begging. An example: a rider, attached by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, provided 39 million for a factlity in his state to study how to tap the ettergy of the aurtr ra borealis. That projee4 now funded, is characterized by one University of Mary- land physicist as "wacky.." , T he NAS's Press is worried that too many scientists and re- search institutions are rushing to engage lobbyista. "ney see that's the way the country runs, through lobbying atd pressure," he says. "It's possible that public confi- dence in scientists will be diminished." That may have already happened. tn the view of some members of Congress, sci- entists have become simply another spe- ciel-interest group pleading for its selfish ends. For all the tvbbyiag, the scientific community has reached no consensus about the worthiness of various projects Molecular biologists and particle physi- cists find it impossible to agree on the relative merits of the Human Genome Project and the superconducting super- collider. "Scientists are scared to death about having to make sttch choias," says Francis Collins, the University of Michi- gan geneticist who led the teams respon- stble for identifying the cystic fibrosis and neurofibromatosis genes. "It's such a contentious area that I'm afraid people won't be able to agree." What is the alternative? Researchers blanch at the thought of a scientifically illit- erate public allotting the available funds through the political proaas. Yet if the sci- ence community cannot establish its own priorities, it is inviting Congress and the White House to make all the chokes, for better or worse. While striving for a consensus, scien- tists would do well to put their house back in order. They should avoid cutting oorners or misusing funds in a desperate effort to make financial ends meet.They must come down hard on transgressors, give whistle blowers a fair hearing and not stonewall in defense of erring colleagues And they should discourage the ill-conceived prac- 77ME, AUGUST76,1991 tice of hastily calling press conferences to announce dubious results that have not been verified by peer review. Fqually important, scientists should re- double efforts to help educate Congress, the press and the public about the Intpor- tance and benefits of some of their more esoteric work. An example: in little publi- cized reports in science journals last month, three teams of researchers re- vealed that they had used genetic engineer- ing to create, for the first time, mice whose brains develop the same kind of deposits as those found in humans with Alzheimers . disease. Using these mice as models, the scientists should now be able to learn more about the debilitating disease that afflicts 4 million Americans and to develop drugs to . alleviate the disorder. . In short, the use of genetic engineering and test animals, practices decried by the i more fanatic critics of science, has provid- ed a means by which Alzheimer's disease could be controlled or even cured. More . aggressive promotion of this kind of news ~ would certainly enhance the image of re- searchers, help restore waning public trust I in science and lessen the clout of anti- i science activists I While scientists remain divided about ~i the solution to their dilemma, they do agree, almost universally, on the tieed for ample support for basic research-re- search that is not launched with a well- defined end product in mind. Such work has not only been the foundation for America's brilliant scientific achieve- ments but has also paid handsome finan- cial dividends. For example, basic studies of bacterial resistance to viruses led to the discovery of restriction enzymes, the biological scissors that can snip DNA segments at precisely defined locations. That discovery in turn made possible re- combinant-DNA technology, which spawned the multibillion-dollar biotech- nology industry. And the laser, now the vital component of devices ranging from ' printers to compact disc players to surgi- I cal instruments, was a serendipitous by- i product of research on molecular structure. ' Nearly a half-century ago, Vannevar Bush's clarion call launched America into its Golden Age of science and helped ; transform society. His words still ring I true today, despite the social and eco- I nomic woes besetting the U.S. In fact, a t vigorous science program, properly ex- I ploited by government and industry, might generate the wealth needed to solve these problems. To create that wealth, the U.S. must increase its invest- ment in science, both by allocating more dollars and making certain that the dot- lars already appropriated are spent more wisely. "We cannot stop investing in our future for all the problema totlay," warns Frank Press, "or we will be mortgaging our future." -n.pvw ay x M.dstsaw xaw Weap aadOk# 8sstpaeNWasMt{b it

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