Notebook

Self-starting science fraud investigators Walter Stewart and Ned Feder at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) appear to have received something like an apology from their supervisor, L. Earl Laurence. Laurence had written the two men a stern reprimand concerning an incident of alleged misuse of NIDDK letterhead. After a November appearance before the federal Commission on Research Integrity--previously approved by Laurence--Stewart and Feder in January sent Kenneth Ryan, commission chairman and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, a copy of an unofficial report on a congressional inquiry into alleged misconduct by HIV researcher Robert C. Gallo of the National Cancer Institute. In a February 15 memorandum, Laurence called the mailing a "flagrant violation" of his April 1993 directives to the pair to cease misconduct inquiries on government time, adding in one communication, "you are not to use Government stationery . . . to pursue such activities." Stewart and Feder countered that they had been invited by the commission to send "follow-up materials" to their testimony and considered the mailing part of their approved appearance. On April 5, Laurence sent another memo to the two: "I am writing to withdraw the reprimand issued to you on February 15, 1995. . . . I have determined that you could have believed that delivering the material you sent to the Ryan Commission on NIDDK letterhead was the continuation of a previously authorized activity. In such circumstances, a reprimand would be unjustified. I will cause the reprimand memorandum of February 15, 1995, to be withdrawn from your Official Personnel Folder." The heavy publicity attending a March 30 New England Journal of Medicine report of an infant who seroconverted from HIV-positive to HIV-negative (Y.J. Bryson et al., 332:833-8, 1995) is a sign of "movement away from [the view that] HIV is basically deadly to [the opinion that AIDS] is a multifactorial disease," according to a longtime proponent of the need to reconsider the role of HIV in AIDS. Michigan State University physiologist Robert Root-Bernstein, author of Rethinking AIDS (New York, Free Press, 1993), points out that the authors of the new study "don't look at anything but HIV; a more important question that the current case hasn't addressed [is] the reason for losing the HIV infection--what other immunosuppressive factors were or were not present in that infant as compared to infants that do progress to AIDS." A press release from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the NEJM study, states that "the infant reported is the first virologically well-studied patient who clearly had HIV that is now undetectable." Root-Bernstein asserts, however, that "there probably are about 50 cases of seroreversion with long-term health prior to this infant, but mainstream researchers have refused to accept those published reports. It's strange for them to reject those cases and make a big deal out of this one." Perhaps, he says, "it's now considered perfectly valid data because now the dogma is changing." Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) has joined the chorus of voices questioning the United States government's AIDS research policy. A March 24 letter from Gutknecht, a member of the House Government Reform and Oversight and Science committees, to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci states that "twelve years, $35 billion and 270,000 deaths since the beginning of the AIDS crisis in America there is still no cure, no vaccine, and no effective treatment for the disease." The letter was copied to National Institutes of Health HIV scientist Robert Gallo, NIH director Harold Varmus, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, among others. It poses a dozen pointed questions, including ". . . is there a study that proves that HIV is the cause of AIDS?", "How do you explain HIV-free AIDS cases?", and "Why are there long-term survivors of HIV?" Another letter from Gutknecht, sent March 6 to Diane Thompson, assistant commissioner for legislative affairs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), asks what records are available relating to the 1987 approval of AZT. Brian Harte, an aide to Gutknecht who developed the letter with advice from University of California, Berkeley, retrovirologist Peter Duesberg, a noted AIDS dissenter, says he and Gutknecht are concerned that "people who have proposed alternative hypotheses are . . . basically shut down by the scientific community in America." Harte says that Gutknecht has not received a response to either letter; at press time, an FDA spokesman was not able to provide information about plans for a response, and an NIAID spokeswoman said a response was being developed by NIH's Office of AIDS Research. The Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (NIE)--a group proposing a new environmental agency (K.Y. Kreeger, The Scientist, May 16, 1994, page 1)--announced that it now has an online forum for participating in and following discussions about NIE and federal environmental research. To subscribe, send a message to listproc@csf.colorado.edu (no subject needed) that simply says: sub cnie yourfirstname yourlastname. These discussions and NIE reports and newsletters will be archived so anyone with access to gopher or the World Wide Web can view them. For more information on the archives or forum, contact Bart Thomas at bartman@uic.edu or David Blockstein at cnie@access.digex.net. The PBS television network and Boston public station WGBH recently paid tribute to the accomplishments of women scientists with a six-part series, "Discovering Women," which aired in two one-hour segments on each of three nights: March 29, April 5, and April 12. The episodes depicted the research endeavors of physicist Melissa Franklin of Harvard University; biochemist Lynda Jordan of North Carolina A&T State University; geophysicist Marcia McNutt of the Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology; archaeologist Patty Jo Watson of Washington University, St. Louis; computational neuroscientist Misha Mahowald of Oxford University; and molecular biologist Lydia Villa-Komaroff of Harvard Medical School. The Association for Women in Science, PBS, WGBH, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy kicked off this celebration of female researchers with a reception at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 9. The women featured in the documentary were honored at the reception, which was underwritten by the Intel Foundation, the corporate funder of the series. Intel Corp. principal scientist Denise Ecklund told attendees that seeing the researchers on TV allows viewers "to see how these women have created challenging, rewarding, and ultimately satisfying lives for themselves in science and technology." Nearly 280 participants broke from activities at the five-day meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in San Jose, Calif., last month to petition the Chinese government to release 33 of their jailed colleagues, being held as political prisoners in Chinese prisons. The petition singles out three incarcerated physicists: Liu Gang, serving a six-year sentence and being held under a "strict regime" for more than a year, resulting in serious ailments; Zhang Lin, sentenced to three years in a labor camp without trial and severely mistreated there; and Zhu Xiangzhong, sentenced to 71/2 years in prison and recently beaten there. The petition was jointly sponsored by APS's Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists and the Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS), an interdisciplinary organization of American scientists dedicated to human rights and scientific freedom for colleagues around the world. For information, contact Dorothy Hirsch, CCS, 53-54 208th St., Bayside, N.Y. 11364; (718) 229-2813. The American Cancer Society is accepting applications for two clinical awards for 1996. The Clinical Oncology Career Development Award (CDA) is a three-year grant given to "promising junior faculty who will pursue academic careers in clinical oncology." Candidates for the award--which pays a stipend of $25,000 in the first year, $30,000 in the second, and $35,000 in the third--must describe a supervised program that will develop their expertise and capacity to perform independent clinical/laboratory research. The Cancer Control Career Development Award for Primary Care Physicians (CCCDA) is a two-year award "intended to develop academic leaders in primary-care specialties emphasizing cancer control." The award--$25,000 in the first year, $30,000 in the second--goes to support "supervised programs that will develop the candidate's clinical and teaching expertise and his/her capacity to perform independent clinical research in cancer control." The deadline for CDA applications is August 1, and for CCCDA it's August 5. For information or application materials, contact Virginia Krawiec, Director, Clinical Awards, Detection and Treatment Department, American Cancer Society Inc., 1599 Clifton Rd., N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30329-4251; (404) 329-5734. Fax: (404) 325-2548. The solution to the problem of cleaning up industrial wastewater containing phenols may be sitting among the condiments at the local raw bar, according to Pennsylvania State University researchers Jean-Marc Bollag, codirector of Penn State's Center for Bioremediation and Detoxification, and Jerzy Dec, a research associate. The scientists believe minced horseradish is great for removing phenols--a group of chemicals found in wastewater from steel and iron manufacturing, paper bleaching, coal conversion, and the production of dyes, resins, plastics, pesticides, textiles, and detergents--but minced potato and white radish will do in a pinch. The secret is in the potential of an enzyme contained in horseradish--horseradish peroxidase--that, when added to wastewater with peroxide, causes pollutants to form insoluble polymers that can be filtered off. Purified peroxidase works just as well as the minced root, with one small drawback: To clean 66,000 gallons of wastewater per day with the purified enzyme would cost an estimated $2.5 million per day. The same task using horseradish? $920--plus, it can be recycled. April 22 is the silver anniversary of Earth Day. Events throughout April have focused on this year's theme, energy efficiency. Around the United States, thousands of state, city, and local community groups, along with grade and high schools and universities, are teaming up to host energy-oriented events for the celebration. For example, Earth Day Energy 2000 is a five-year program that aims to assist local communities in implementing power- and resource-saving programs. Other general projects include Proj-ect Earthlink, a public-education program sponsored by 13 federal agencies that concentrates on global environmental changes. In an ironic twist, Earth Day organizers in Philadelphia are planning a Clean Commute Day to encourage and educate people about public transportation; however, at press time, the city is in the grip of a transit-workers' strike. For more information on national, state, and local events, contact Earth Day USA at (603) 924-7720. Not to be outdone, the National Science Foundation has scheduled this year's National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) for April 21-29. The celebration, coinciding with Earth Day, will highlight environmental awareness. NSTW is a public-outreach program developed by NSF in 1984. Science centers and natural history museums, students and teachers, and scientific professional societies and corporations are among the groups joining in to sponsor events, some on the Internet. For example, the Abnacki Girl Scout Council in Brewer, Maine, will throw a birthday party for the Earth, with recycling-oriented activities. And the Museum of Science and Discovery in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will hold contests for the most creative use of trash, among other activities. As part of the celebration, NSF scientists and engineers will staff a toll-free science hotline (800) 682-2716 on Wednesday, April 26, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, and will be available all week through E-mail () to answer scientific questions. For more information on local NSTW events, contact NSF at nstw@nsf.gov.

Notebook

The Scientist Staff

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