When the news is this good, it’s hard to keep it to yourself. It might even be illegal. That’s why Chiron Corp. violated a basic tenet of the science profession by announcing in a press conference, rather than in a scientific journal following peer review, that it had isolated the virus for hepatitis non-A, non-B. States Ginger Rosenberg, associate director of business development of the seven-year-old Emeryville, Calif., medical research company, to have done otherwise may have violated SEC regulations. It seems word was leaking out, and so the company had to act in order to avoid being charged with an attempt at stock manipulation. Chiron, whose stock rose $1.75 to $16.50 the day of the announcement, says a paper on the hepatitis virus is coming soon.

Can We Talk?

The silence emanating from Steve Jobs’ new company, Next Inc., is deafening. Fortune (May 23, page 83), reports that the...

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