Government Briefs

Baseball 1, Science 0 World Series hero Orel Hershiser has pitched another shutout—this time against U.S. science and math teachers. Last month President Reagan passed up a ceremony honoring 104 of the nation’s top junior and senior high school science and math teachers, even though the White House began the program in 1983 to demonstrate its commitment to improving science education in the U.S. His excuse? The Los Angeles Dodgers were coming to town—at his invitation—after winning the World Series. The hastily arranged White House reception took place on the same momma the teachers were being feted. That left NSF director Erich Bloch and presidential science adviser William Graham to pinch-hit. The two may have drawn the teachers’ applause, but NSF, which administers the program, wanted Reagan. Twice before, the president had shown up, but this year it was an uphill battle from the start. NSF officials had tried for months to get the event placed on the president’s calendar but were rebuffed by White House staffers who apparently felt that science education is not a political winner. NIH Merges Two Divisions In Economy Move NIH officials have merged two low-profile divisions in an attempt to increase the efficiency of their declining work force and reverse the creeping proliferation of administrative units on the Bethesda, Md., campus. Deputy Director William Raub announced the change at a recent meeting of the advisory council for the $385 million Division of Research Resources, which is being merged with the $45 million Division of Research Services. At the same time, he nominated Robert Whitney, a veterinary scientist who has run DRS for the past four years, to head the newly merged DRR. This move was triggered by the September retirement of DRR Director Betty Pickett. DRR runs a variety of programs to support the extramural community, while DRS serves the needs of intramural scientists. Raub and others have justified the merger by citing strains on NIH staff caused when Congress recently mandated institutes on arthritis and deafness plus a brand-new nursing center—all this despite the fact that NIH’s staff has shrunk to 12,300 from 13500 only five years ago. But not everyone agrees with Raub’s remedy: Critics complain about one part of the reorganization that would shift two DRR programs—one that provides technical equipment to researchers and the other that augments clinical research services—to other institutes. They contend that this is actually an attempt to dilute and weaken those programs. The Best Of Both Worlds This fall has been a busy one for biologist James Watson. On October 1, the Nobel laureate began his duties as the two-day-a-week NIH associate director of human genome research, while remaining director of Cold Spring Harbor (N.Y.) Laboratory. Only a few weeks earlier he had received a three-year, $3.6 million NIH grant to study the basic pathology of the AIDS virus. As a regular NIH employee, Watson would have been ineligible for the funding, which was given out under the new Programs of Excellence in Basic Research on AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But NIH officials agreed to bring him aboard under a category that permits a part-timer to be designated a government employee only during the time he actually works at his NIH job. This little-known rule makes it kosher for Watson to be the recipient of an NIH grant during the days when he’s at Cold Spring Harbor, says Philip Chen, deputy director for intramural research. A lab spokesman says that there are a half-dozen other investigators that will carry out the scientific aspects of ‘the grant. Coincidentally, on September 1, Chen’s office issued a revised version of the NIH manual that spells out restrictions on outside work by intramural scientists.

Government Briefs

The Scientist Staff

Baseball 1, Science 0

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