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Voters Care About Science!
By Michael Stebbins. Originally published at Science Progress
Despite all the activities of pro-science groups such as Scientists and Engineers for America and ScienceDebate2008, most candidates for office have not put forward comprehensive science and technology policy platforms. Of course, many of us science nerds have been making the argument that S&T is at least peripherally important to just about every major issue the nation is facing, and therefore should be addressed by candidates for elected office. But we have been fighting a losing battle against the cynical perception shared by many campaigns that candidates’ positions on S&T issues do not win votes. As it turns out, they are wrong.
Scientists and Engineers for America just released the results of a poll of over 1,000 Americans on how likely they would be to support candidates based upon their positions on key science and technology issues. SEA anticipated a positive reaction to the questions, but was stunned by the overwhelmingly affirmative response. Eighty-six percent of those polled, for example, say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is committed to preparing students with the skills they need for the 21st Century through public investments in science and technology education.
Similarly, 84 percent said they would be more likely to support a candidate who is committed to reducing the cost and improving the quality of healthcare through public investments in science and technology. And 52 percent indicated they would be much more likely to support candidates who expressed that science and technology is a priority for them.
Equally impressive was the party breakdown. While there remained a divide between Democrats and Republicans on all of the issues, members of both parties clearly viewed science as important. The largest divide came on climate change, where only 56 percent of Republican respondents said that they would be more likely to vote for someone committed to addressing global climate change through public investments in science and technology. This compared to 84 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of independent voters in favor of candidates who would devote public science and technology funds to fight climate change. Add up those majorities in favor of S&T spending to fight global warming and its clear it would be foolish for any campaign not to at least address the issue and support science.
Naturally, in Congress and in a political campaign, science will play second fiddle to a mismanaged war, eroding civil rights and what appears to be the start of a nasty recession. But if SEA’s polling numbers are correct, then giving science short-shrift or ignoring it completely is a strategic mistake. The poll doesn’t tell us why people valued science or how science ranked against other issues, but those details seems unimportant with such overwhelmingly positive support.
Ask And Ye Shall Receive
There are, of course, two science-related issues that most campaigns have addressed, embryonic stem cells and global warming. But that is largely due to the intense pressure put on them by the press. For the most part, campaigns have not been specific about their stance on global warming, just that it needs to be addressed. This is clearly insufficient.
To address this critical issue directly, a coalition of organizations led by SEA and SD2008 have come up with a series of 7 questions for congressional candidates, and 14 questions for the presidential candidates on critical science and technology issues. SEA has also set up a system for the public to look up their local candidates and send the questions to them directly through the website. Candidates can then log into the website and post their responses.
As of today 18 congressional campaigns have logged in and started to answer the questions, which appear on SEA’s SHARP Network, a Wikipedia-like webpage detailing the health and science stances of all members of Congress and all candidates for office. This is, of course, not the only effort to get candidates for office to answer questions on essential issues. For example, Research America launched a campaign to get candidates to answer questions on health issues.
These web based initiatives are excellent examples of how basic Web 2.0 principles have spread into campaign and advocacy arenas. They embody a new sense of urgency that our government be truly of the people and for the people. Take the poll as an example. It tells a much larger story than the mere fact that science is important to the public. It shows that presumptions about what the public cares about ought to be challenged by advocacy groups and citizens who want their voice heard and represented by their candidates.
The efforts to get candidates to answer basic questions on major issues is a direct response to the desire and need for change, for increased transparency and accountability by those who serve the public. Indeed, the Internet has changed the way we consume information, but it has also fundamentally changed how we communicate and has empowered the people to organize and demand respect on a level that has not been seen in our time. Candidates have a choice today. They can tell their constituents where they stand on the issues. Or they can ignore them, and continue with business as usual. But the public also has a choice if their candidates fail to address their concerns. They can return the favor in the voting booth in November.
Michael Stebbins is the Director of Biology Policy for the Federation of American Scientists, President of the Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund and author of Sex, Drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted.
Senate FY 2009 NASA Funding Bill
By Robert Jones at AIP
As noted in FYI #69, the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved its draft of the FY 2009 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Bill. This bill is now pending on the Senate floor. This $57.9 billion bill includes funding for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and NASA.
In discussing this bill, S.3182, subcommittee chairwomen Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) explained “There is simply too much pressure on NASA’s budget – now and in the future. The only way to reduce the pressure on the budget, and maintain a balanced space program, is to increase our federal commitment to NASA and our national space program.” NASA’s current budget is $17,329.4 million; the Administration requested $17,614.2 million for FY 2009. The bill provides $17,814.2 million, which is $200 million more than the Administration requested. Under this bill, NASA’s budget would increase 2.8 percent or $484.8 million.
Below are excerpts from Senate Report 110-397 pertaining to NASA. The entire report is available at this Library of Congress site.
INTRODUCTION:
“NASA’s vision for space exploration maps out an aggressive role for the United States in manned space exploration. However, the potential costs are substantial and will likely be very difficult to maintain at the current estimated funding levels. In addition, the Committee feels strongly that NASA must show its commitment to those human spaceflight activities already underway. The Shuttle program and the construction of the International Space Station [ISS] continue to be the primary focus of the Nation’s manned space flight activities. Nevertheless, the replacements for the Space Shuttle’s manned and heavy lift capabilities must also be considered as part of any plan for continued human access to space but not to the detriment of existing obligations.
“The Committee is concerned that NASA will neglect areas that only tangentially benefit, or do not fit within, the exploration vision. The Committee believes that NASA must work diligently to balance existing programs and priorities with its plans for the future. Counterbalancing future priorities against current programs places existing research and expertise in jeopardy and risks squandering significant Federal investments that may be essential to the exploration vision.
“In addition, the Committee is concerned that the strong, balanced science program that has served the Nation so successfully for many years is being left behind rather than being nurtured and sustained. That science program has been based on a set of carefully crafted scientific strategies that are founded on scientific and technical merit, relevance to overall national needs, and broad consultation with the scientific community.”
SCIENCE:
The current budget is $4,706.2 million.
The Administration requested $4,441.5 million
The Senate bill recommended $4,522.9 million, a reduction of 3.9 percent or $183.3 million
Senate Report 110-397 here has an extensive two-page table (see pages 89-90 of the PDF format) with line item funding levels for Earth Science, Planetary Science, Astrophysics, and Heliophysics. This “Science” table includes a $156.0 million “reallocation of prior year unobligated balances [see below].” The FY 2009 NASA budget request can be accessed here.
The committee report included the following language for “Science”:
“Earth Science. – Earth science is a critical part of the balanced space program long advocated by this Committee. NASA Earth science missions are central to our ability to monitor and provide warnings about climate, weather, and other hazards. To that end, the Committee provides a programmatic increase of $47,000,000 above the budget request, for a total of $150,000,000, to accelerate the Earth science decadal missions in development. The agency is directed to ensure that these missions include the full complement of data collection capabilities as recommended by the National Academies’ Earth science decadal report. The Committee strongly supports the acceleration of the ICE-Sat II mission to ensure launch no later than 2013 as recommended by the National Academies. The Committee notes that ICE-Sat II will be critical to our continued monitoring of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets.
“The Committee continues to expect NASA’s Earth science portfolio to have a continuous mixture of small-, medium-, and observatory-class Earth science missions that guarantee regular and recurring flight opportunities for the Earth science community.
“Landsat Data Continuity Mission [LDCM]. – The Committee supports the development and flight of a thermal infra-red sensor [TIRS] to maintain continuity of the critical measurements made by this Landsat sensor for scientific research and water management applications. The Committee urges NASA to initiate development of TIRS within available funds, and to identify the earliest and least expensive development approach and flight opportunity for the TIRS. NASA should report back to the Committee on this development approach no later than October 31, 2008.
“Stennis Space Center [SSC]. – The recommendation includes an increase of $15,000,000 above the budget request for the NASA Earth Science Applications Program for the Earth Applications program managed through Stennis Space Center. This funding increase shall only be used to support new competitively selected applications projects to be selected during fiscal year 2009. These projects will integrate the results of NASA’s Earth observing systems and Earth system models (using observations and predictions) into decision support tools to serve applications of national priority including, but not limited to: homeland security; coastal management; agriculture efficiency; and water and disaster management.
“Heliophysics. – Within funds provided to advance scientific knowledge of the Sun’s impact on the Earth, the Committee provides the full budget requirements of $165,000,000 for the Radiation Belt Storm Probe mission and $108,100,000 for the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, as well as $18,000,000 for the Solar Probe Mission. The Committee notes that the Solar Probe mission is the highest priority recommendation of the National Academies’ heliophysics decadal report, and therefore strongly urges the Agency to work to achieve a launch no later than 2015.
“Planetary Science. – Within funds provided to advance scientific knowledge of our solar system, the Committee provides the full budget requirement $463,194,000 for the Mars rovers and related science. The Committee is deeply troubled by the cost overruns on the Mars Science Lab, and directs NASA to report no later than October 31, 2008 on the management and accountability actions taken to ensure that costs do not continue to grow.
“Lunar Landers. – The Committee is pleased that NASA has chosen to continue its previously planned robotic lunar lander mission. This mission was selected by NASA in 2005 and is now a pathfinder for an anticipated network of small lunar science landers and orbiters based on requirements of the Science Mission Directorate’s expanded Lunar Science Program. The first two mini-landers are planned to be launched together in the 2013-2014 timeframe to initiate a geophysical sensor network across the Moon. NASA anticipates that the missions selected and managed by the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program Office will transition this small lunar lander effort to the Lunar Science Program, managed by Marshall Space Flight Center, in the Science Mission Directorate no later than fiscal year 2010. In anticipation of this action, the Committee provides $10,000,000 for the selected lunar lander mission, as requested by NASA.
“Astrophysics. – Within funds provided to advance scientific knowledge of the origins of the Universe, the Committee provides the full budget requirements of $165,000,000 for the Hubble Space Telescope and $395,000,000 for the James Webb Space Telescope. The Committee also provides the full budget request of $8,500,000 for the Joint Dark Energy Mission [JDEM] and continues to support development of the JDEM through full and open competition with project management residing at the appropriate NASA center.
“Wallops Flight Facility [WFF]. – The Committee has long advocated that the WFF is an important national asset that can be better utilized by focusing on emerging technologies that meet national needs and NASA priorities. The Committee therefore provides programmatic increases of: $11,000,000 for advanced technology development of small satellites and unmanned aerial systems [UAS] that have the potential of lowering the costs of space and Earth science missions consistent with the goals of venture class missions recommended by the National Academies’ Earth science decadal report; and $14,000,000 to improve launch pad infrastructure.
“Reallocation of Funds. – The Committee has included a reallocation of fiscal year 2008 funds in the amount of $145,000,000 to ensure the full 2009 budget requirements for programs and activities adjusted as a result of NASA’s May 30, 2008 reprogramming request. NASA shall report on this reallocation no later than 30 days after enactment of this act.”
AERONAUTICS:
The current budget is $511.7 million
The Administration requested $446.5 million
The Senate bill recommended $500.0 million, a reduction of 2.3 percent or $11.7 million
See pages 92 - 93 of the PDF format for further information.
EXPLORATION:
The current budget is $3,143.1 million
The Administration requested $3,500.5
The Senate bill recommended $3,530.5 million, an increase of 12.3 percent or $387.4 million
This account funds the new Crew Launch Vehicle, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the heavy lift component, and the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. See pages 93 - 94 of the PDF.
SPACE OPERATIONS:
The current budget is $5,526.2 million
The Administration requested $5,774.7 million
The Senate bill recommended $5,774.7 million, the Administration request, an increase of 4.5 percent or $248.5 million
This account funds the Space Shuttle, space station, and supporting operations. There was no language regarding the date of the shuttle’s retirement, the number of pending shuttle flights, or shuttle payloads. See pages 94-95 of the PDF.
EDUCATION:
The current budget is $146.8 million
The Administration requested $115.6 million
The Senate bill recommended $130.0 million, a decrease of 11.4 percent or $16.8 million
See pages 95 - 96 of the PDF
OTHER:
“Censorship of Scientific Information. – The Committee continues to be concerned that there is openness in communication of federally supported science results. Government scientists must be able to research and report their findings to the public without fear of censorship or intimidation, and American taxpayers have the right to know the facts. A recent Inspector General report found that NASA officials acted ‘in a manner that reduced, marginalized, and mischaracterized the scientific information’ about climate change. The Committee directs NASA to immediately implement all of the recommendations contained in the IG report to ensure that NASA’s policies and practices protect openness in reporting of scientific information. The Agency shall report to the Committee on this issue no later than October 31, 2008.”
A press release issued by Senator Mikulski states that she will re-introduce an amendment on the Senate floor to provide $1 billion for expenses related to returning the shuttle fleet to flight. This money would reimburse science, aeronautics, and exploration budgets that were reduced to pay for shuttle repairs.
R&D Data? What R&D data?
By Henry Kelly, Ph.D.
If you trying to set policy for a country increasingly entangled in global production networks, a country where a growing fraction of economic activity depends on the products of research and invention, what kind of economic statistics would you like to have? You might be curious about research investment and whether it needs to be considered on a par with the fixed capital investments that dominated the industrial revolution. You might be interested in the size of the investments foreign companies and foreign governments are making in the US.
Right? Guess again.
Faced with reduced budgets (measured in constant dollars) the Bureau of Economic Analysis has been forced to:
• Discontinue developing statistics in 2008 for the research and development (R&D) satellite account.
• Raise reporting thresholds and reduce the level of detail collected in BEA’s surveys of the operations of multinational corporations in the U.S.
• Eliminate the survey of new direct investment in U.S. companies by foreign companies (BEA will continue to collect data on total direct investment flows, but will no longer be able to distinguish investments in existing companies from “Greenfield” and other new investments).
Among other things this will scuttle a collaboration with NSF that tried to improve the way we understand the ways R&D investment affect the US economy. The insights of this research were leading to critical results. Among other things it revealed that “R&D accounts for 5 percent of real GDP growth between 1959 and 2004, and 7 percent between 1995 and 2004. This ramp-up in R&D’s contribution helps explain the pick-up in economic growth and productivity since 1995.”
An increasing fraction of the value added in the US economy is not in the form of stuff but in the form of knowledge and information. 86% of US workers are “service workers”. It’s obvious to everyone paying any attention to these dramatic developments that programs designed to ensure continued US economic growth, continued competitiveness in US markets, and increasing prosperity of American citizens needs to be based on the clearest possible understanding of how value flows in this new economy. We need to adapt and expand economic models to reflect these changes and the data to support them.
If, however, your preferred style of governance is to defend the proposition that cutting taxes on the affluent is the solution to all possible problems, the last thing you want is an unwelcome intrusion of evidence. Particularly if the evidence shows that federal investment in areas like research pay huge dividends. And you certainly don’t want data that might uncover problems requiring increased federal activity. This style of thinking is best supported by shooting the messenger –which is apparently just what the administration has chosen to do.
Henry Kelly, Ph.D., is the President of the Federation of American Scientists and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Scientists and Engineers for America.
Watering the West
courtesy of Science Progress
A recent issue of National Geographic featured a compelling story on the double-barreled threat facing western states: rapid population growth and climate change. “The American West was won by water management,” proclaims the article. “What happens when there’s no water left to manage?”
This question vexes more than water managers. It may seem absurd to approve development without reliable water supplies, but that is exactly what has happened in many communities—leaving homeowners and other taxpayers holding the bill when extravagant measures become necessary to gain access to water.
Just as homeowners demand, and building codes require, safe wiring and solid foundations for their dwellings, they also deserve to know that their drinking water taps will deliver clean, reliable water for decades to come. Moreover, states are currently reckoning with the question of what happens when there is little water left to manage—two weeks ago, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought.
The failure to connect land-use and water planning may have far-reaching and increasingly unacceptable consequences.
Historically, land-use decisions and water planning have been treated as entirely separate issues. Water is allocated by state agencies, and land-use planning falls under the authority of local officials. Water resource managers juggle many competing demands within a watershed, and they tend to focus on facilitating economic development. In turn, local land-use authorities have safely assumed that water would be available to satisfy continued growth.
Increasingly, however, local land-use decisions run headlong into water supply concerns. Planning for growth is important in all communities, and planning for sustainable water supplies to support that growth should be an integral part of that planning process. Although water itself seldom provides a hard barrier to growth, the failure to connect land-use and water planning may have far-reaching and increasingly unacceptable consequences.
In some cases, existing uses are depleting finite water supplies, raising questions about their future reliability. For example, in some fast-growing rural areas of Arizona, recently constructed houses draw water from wells that the state engineer’s office has certified as “not reliable” due to insufficient underground supplies. Some new homeowners did not realize the tenuous nature of their water supplies and have been forced to deepen their wells or construct cisterns and pay for trucked-in water.
Elsewhere, officials are beginning to face the high social, environmental, and economic costs of obtaining water to meet rising urban demands. Urban growth around Phoenix, Denver, and Boise has been fueled by voluntary, market-based reallocation of water from farms to cities. But public outcry over Las Vegas’ long reach into rural Nevada may indicate renewed concerns over the impacts of large-scale water transfers, both on the rural communities from which the water is taken and on the pocketbooks of the consumers receiving it.
With the recently enacted H.B. 1141, the Colorado General Assembly took an important first step in ensuring such reliable water supplies for new development. This law creates a new tool for local governments to determine whether development projects can demonstrate that the proposed water supply is adequate to meet the project’s water supply demands. It gives local governments the authority to deny developments without adequate water supplies, but the local governments retain discretion to decide whether to authorize development.
In addition to the steps prescribed by the Colorado legislature, a number of other policy levers could be employed to provide a better handle for water-conscious land use decisions. The Colorado bill does not, for example, assign any time horizon to the supply requirement, but simply looks at the possible peak daily, monthly and yearly demands at projected build-out levels of development. Other states, including Arizona and California, require such “assured supplies” for 50- to 100-year planning horizons, although each state has significant exceptions built into the requirements.
What would an ideal assured-supply law look like? According to Utah law professor Lincoln Davies, such a law would be: (1) mandatory; (2) stringent; (3) statewide; (4) broadly applicable, applying to more than just large projects; and (5) interconnected with broader planning mechanisms for land, water, and environmental protection. Thus far, no state statute meets all these criteria, though the legislation enacted in California in 2001 comes closest.
Acting under the mandate of the 2001 laws, last year the California Supreme Court halted a mixed-use development in the Sacramento area on the grounds that the decision was not based on enough information about the plan for long-term water supplies to serve the development. A more recent Riverside County Superior Court decision in January followed that line of thinking and denied a large development based on a failure to demonstrate adequate water supplies.
A recent New York Times story about growth in persistently drought-stricken California quoted local and state water managers and Governor Schwarzenegger, all of whom remarked that unreliable water supplies are delaying new development and thus destabilizing the state’s powerful economy. The San Diego civil grand jury went further in a report issued in February with the attention-grabbing title “Sober Up, San Diego. The Water Party is Over,” concluding that permanent, mandatory conservation measures would be necessary to accommodate the realities of squeezing lots of people into an arid landscape.
Such strong public statements remain the exception rather than the rule, but the trend is clearly toward taking a harder look at water supplies before approving new development. Western expansion has long relied on the promise of abundant and cheap water—a myth that is already shattered in many communities and is sure to be exposed as false in many more in the decades to come.
The solution to our dilemma goes beyond linking water and land-use planning, but we can no longer be indifferent to the environmental and other costs of developing water to meet projected needs. In taking the first step and thinking more deliberately about water demands of growth, assured-supply laws represent an important step toward living sustainably in this spectacular—and fundamentally dry—western landscape.
Sarah Bates is the deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a nonpartisan regional policy institute dedicated to advancing progressive policy solutions for the Rocky Mountain West. She has written extensively on the legal and policy options for linking land use and water planning in western states.
The “What if?” of Dual-Use Research Awareness
By Michael Stebbins originally posted at Science Progress
The principle is simple. The products, information and techniques of some life sciences research could be misused for nefarious purposes, such as bioterrorism, and the scientific community should do everything it can to prevent such misuse without impeding research progress. What is unclear is what steps scientists should take when they have concerns about such “dual-use” research.
Dual-use research has been the subject of much discussion in the biosecurity community since the 2003 release of the National Research Council report, Biotechnology Research in the Age of Terrorism, which suggested that, “Adequately addressing the potential risks that research in advanced biotechnology could be misused by hostile parties will require educating the community of life scientists, both about the nature of these risks and about the responsibilities of scientists to address and manage them.” But convincing scientists that they should add dual-use research awareness and evaluations to their already long list of idiosyncratic worries turned out to be far harder than anyone imagined.
Enter the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. In June of last year, the NSABB released their Proposed Framework for the Oversight of Dual Use Life Sciences Research, in which the board recommend that life scientists receive “mandatory education about dual-use research issues and policies,” with the goal of “ensure(ing) that all individuals engaged in life sciences research are aware of the concerns and issues regarding dual use research and their roles and responsibilities in the oversight of such research.”
In addition to mandatory training, both the National Research Council and the NSABB have advocated for the creation of codes of conduct for life sciences researchers that includes dual-use awareness. Now, research societies are preparing and implementing their codes of conduct, infusing another layer of awareness into the research community.
Indeed, it will not be long before it is mandatory that all federal grantees in the life sciences receive such training, and that all biologists sign codes of conduct. Awareness will spread like happy little dandelions. That is until someone points out that they are weeds.
Don’t get me wrong. I am an advocate of mandatory training and think codes of conduct are a good tool for increasing awareness. Not least of the reasons for my support being that the Federation of American Scientists arguably has the most extensive dual-use training materials available to date in the form of our multimedia Case Studies in Dual-Use Research. Wide distribution of these case studies and materials created by other groups has been a goal of ours from the time we started the project.
The problem is that we (myself included) have not taken the long-view on this issue. If we dramatically increase awareness, then we also increase the chances that scientists will have concerns about dual-use research or worse—suspicions that a colleague is up to no good. What the NSABB, National Research Council and the biosecurity community on the whole have failed to fully address is how those researchers should attend to their concerns. Government-issued guidelines for researchers will only get them so far.
Since part of the duty of a responsible researcher will certainly be reporting unsafe experiments or suspicious behavior, instituting codes of conduct and training all scientists makes potential whistleblowers out of every working biologist. This creates an immediate need for protocols and methods for scientists to get advice and report their concerns.
There is currently no reliable independent system in place for these researchers to report or receive advice on how to handle their concerns.
It is well recognized that a major barrier to reporting such incidents to law enforcement, supervisors, biosafety officers, or institutional review boards, is the fear of reprisal. This might also be compounded by some members of the scientific community not trusting government officials and law enforcement in particular. This extends from laboratory technicians and support staff to primary investigators. Even if there is no indication of foul play, scientists may feel that there are experiments being conducted at their institution that have serious dual-use implications, or that are dangerous to those conducting them and their colleagues.
There is currently no reliable independent system in place for these researchers to report or receive advice on how to handle their concerns. Such a system would be a valuable contribution to strengthening biosecurity awareness and participation within the biological research community. It should be pointed out that such a system is a good way to get across the idea that official whistle-blowing is not the first and only resort.
I and others have suggested that we need to build a secure Internet-based system where scientists will be able to report their concerns and receive advice and recommendations on the steps that they should or should not take. Concerns will naturally run the range of how to fill out dual-use reporting forms on grants to reporting potentially illegal situations in the lab. It is important that the government not operate the system to ensure buy in. Rather, an ombudsman network should be run by a non-government organization that will allow partial anonymity.
In the event that a clear cause of action is required, such as when a law is being broken, a non-government organization would be well-placed to help facilitate conversations with law enforcement, make queries on the behalf of the scientist to government, or alleviate concerns without endangering their status at the institute.
The system will have to be backed by a large group of advisors, including experts from multiple science disciplines, ethicists, legal and law enforcement representatives to ensure that users are receiving timely and accurate advice. The system administrator will have to be available at all times and have constant access to advisors in the case of a serious problem.
One major concern of scientists will be the preservation of anonymity. This issue can be simply handled by having staff farm out the query to advisors without revealing the identity of the scientist. Total anonymity, however, cannot be completely preserved in such a system.
In principle, users will turn to this system when they feel uncomfortable reporting concerns within their institution or when they are unsure of who to turn to. Responses will either ask for further information, clarification, or report back advice on the appropriate course of action.
Users must also feel comfortable that the information they divulge will not be released to anyone unless they approve it. This can be accomplished by making users agree to simple terms before sending their query. Those terms will detail operation standards and will inform users under which conditions the managers have a legal responsibility to inform appropriate authorities, and that they may be contacted by such authorities directly in the event that a law has been or is about to be broken.
Detailed records of responses and customizable electronic form letters will allow us to provide useful assistance and inform users of their rights and the laws that might apply to them in a timely manner. It should be stressed that in the event a user reports an imminent threat, they will automatically receive instructions on who they should contact. There are several important issues that will have to be addressed while developing a biosecurity reporting system, among them:
Whistleblower Laws. The United States has a well-established set of “whistleblower” laws that protect people from reprisals for reporting. There are several excellent non-profit groups that specialize in this area and it will be important to bring them in for legal advice and possibly to present a series of Frequently Asked Questions on the site for scientists to learn about their options.
Legal Advice. We will need legal advice on a broad range of issues, including the liability associated with giving advice, maintaining anonymity, the situations under which those with knowledge of possible crimes are legally obligated to contact law enforcement, and applicable laws for users.
Advisory Boards. An advisory board consisting of scientists, ethicists, biosecurity experts, and legal advisors will have to be brought in for the design and implementation. A second advisory board will have to be available for advice on individual cases. It will be important to have a wide array of expertise and knowledge on hand to address any reports that come in.
Law Enforcement Guidelines. A clear relationship with law enforcement will need to be established so that in the event that there is a user who is uncomfortable going to law enforcement themselves, we would be able to report an incident on their behalf.
Testing. It will be necessary to test the system through a series of table-top scenarios that provide challenges to our response times and content.
It is a virtual certainty that this type of system would eventually be abused maliciously against other scientists trying to slow down a competitor, or exact revenge. In that sense, the system itself would have dual-use potential and like science, safeguards and awareness will reduce, but might not eliminate, unfortunate incidences.
It is also hard to predict how often such a system would be used and what percentage of the time it would receive cranks. But it is equally unclear to what degree dual-use research is a threat to national security. If we are going to require scientists to learn about the potential for misuse, then it is essential that they have a place to turn if they recognize potential misuse or have questions about complying with legal and ethical requirements.
Michael Stebbins is the Director of Biology Policy for the Federation of American Scientists, President of the SEA Action Fund and author of Sex, Drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted.
Survey of Pox Virus Research
Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News, a Federation of American Scientists project, just released a report produced for the intelligence community on pox virus research around the world. The report was written by Dr Alfred D. Steinberg, working for MITRE Corporation. While not classified, the report was also not approved for public release. From the report “It is widely feared that samples of variola virus may have been retained in several countries after a WHO directive to allow storage of such samples only in Russia and the United States.” It details the published pox virus research from around the world and provides a snapshot of the breadth of pox virus research happening today.
From Secrecy News:
Dozens of countries are conducting research involving animal pox viruses, according to a descriptive survey performed for the U.S. intelligence community’s Open Source Center.
There are various potential public health and security concerns associated with pox viruses (such as smallpox), the OSC report says in a background discussion.
“Naturally occurring smallpox disease was eliminated worldwide in 1977. Routine vaccination of US civilians against smallpox was discontinued in 1971, but allowed for travelers to endemic regions until the late 1970s. In most other countries, vaccination of the general population ended by 1982. As a result of this halt in vaccination, most of the US population could now become ill with smallpox disease should it be reintroduced by accident or intentionally.”
“In addition, humans are susceptible to several naturally occurring viruses related to smallpox, one of which could become a serious disease risk through natural evolution. Routine smallpox vaccination previously protected against these viruses. Finally, there is concern about the potential creation of a genetically engineered poxvirus that might be markedly pathogenic for humans.”
Like most finished intelligence products from the Open Source Center, the report on animal pox viruses has not been approved for public release. But a copy was obtained independently by Secrecy News.
One More Thing You Shouldn’t Inhale:
The Past and Future (But No Present) of Carbon Nanotubes and Asbestos. By Cyrus Mody.
This post originally appeared in The World’s Fair part of ScienceBlogs.
There’s a new study reported in Nature Nanotechnology entitled “Carbon nanotubes introduced into the abdominal cavity of mice show asbestos-like pathogenicity in a pilot study.” Or, as the title seems to have been understood by reporters at the New York Times and elsewhere, “Blah NANO blah blah blah ASBESTOS blah PATHOGEN blah blah.”
The gist of the original Nature Nano study is this: (1) we know asbestos fibers, once heralded as a godsend, can cause mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs. (2) We know this has something to do with the high aspect ratio of asbestos fibers (they’re long and skinny). (3) Carbon nanotubes can also have high aspect ratios, and people have sometimes worried that they might be “the next asbestos,” so let’s see if that’s literally true at the cellular level. (4) Indeed, if we accept mice as a substitute for humans, and the lining of the body cavity as a substitute for the lining of the lungs, then cells react to the presence of carbon nanotubes somewhat similarly to the way they react to asbestos fibers. (5) That is, cells in the lining try to engulf the nanotubes, and succeed if the CNTs are short or tangled up into balls; but if the CNTs are very long (more than 13 microns or so), then the lining cells cannot engulf them and start releasing chemicals that cause cells around them to become inflamed. (6) With asbestos fibers, this kind of inflammation is a known precursor to cancer (though the exact mechanism is hazy); with the carbon nanotubes, the mice didn’t stick around long enough to get cancer, but “these are research questions that must be addressed with some urgency before the commercial use of long CNTs becomes widespread” - i.e., look out for our next grant proposal!
Substantively, there isn’t much surprising about this study. Indeed, the authors basically say “toxicologists have a paradigm for how mesothelial cells respond to long, skinny, tiny fibers - and that paradigm seems to hold true for carbon nanotubes.” Their results aren’t very conclusive, or even all that dire, yet the study has gotten plenty of attention. Why? Well, for one thing, the study was pretty savvily designed to fit into ongoing policy debates about nano. One of the authors, for instance, is Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in DC.
Now, Maynard is a bona fide expert in this area, but his current day job is at a Washington think tank. His contribution to the article doesn’t appear to have been technical, but rather he “provided intellectual input and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.” I’m guessing that means he helped the authors figure out how to position their research in relation to previous studies on nanotubes, and used the considerable media profile of the Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies to amplify their findings. It certainly looks like the Wilson Center primed science reporters to take a much keener interest in this study than they might normally.
I’d suggest a complementary reason why this study strikes such a chord. The Nature Nano article, and the research underlying it, reaffirms and plays to nano’s deep, abiding antipathy toward the present. Whenever people talk about nano, whether pro or con, they seem to feel much more comfortable talking about the past or the future rather than the present. The nanotechnology enterprise has been built on rather grand promises of a “next industrial revolution” that will either devour the earth or make everyone immortal. Thus, any given piece of current research looks so wan in comparison to those promises that it’s hard to actually label it as “nanotechnology.” Nano research really only gets a lot of press if it’s taken as a stepping stone to some brighter future - the “next transistor,” for instance, rather than as a satisfying result of its own.
If nano only has a future with no coherent present, it certainly can’t have a past. And, indeed, popular belief (even among practicing scientists) seems to be that the history of nanotechnology is nonexistent. Yet evocations of other pasts are all over public debates - nano will be just like the industrial revolution (only cleaner), just like biotechnology (only less controversial), just like the dot.com boom (only with a softer landing), etc. etc.
So note how the Nature Nano article plays with past and future to justify itself. It starts by pointing out that “the global market for CNTs is predicted to grow to between $1 and $2 billion by 2014.” The NYT article summarizing the study starts thus: “nanotubes, one of the wonder materials of the new age of nanotechnology, may carry a health risk similar to that of asbestos, a wonder material of an earlier age that turned into a scourge after decades of use.” An article in Science cited by the Nature Nano piece worries that an earlier study of the effect of nanotubes on fish could “put the field on the same path as previous abortive scientific revolutions such as agricultural biotechnology and nuclear power.” The same article quotes Julia Moore, another Wilson Center PEN person, saying that “nanotech is in danger of becoming another Frankenfood controversy.”
So the rationale for doing this study seems to be that: nano is promised to do great things in the future; asbestos was promised to do great things in the future in the past; asbestos ultimately became publicly controversial and cost a lot of people a lot of money and/or their lives; nano is doomed to follow the same trajectory in the future as fields that it looks like in the past; nanotubes look a bit like asbestos, which caused cancer in the past, so we should see if nanotubes will cause cancer in the future.
This isn’t meant to belittle the findings of this study - I think it’s great that this kind of research is being done. I am a little amused, though, by nanoists constant preoccupation with the past and the future. My normative suggestion would be that nanoists should be more focused on the present, beginning with studies like this one. What does this research actually tell us about mesothelial cells that we didn’t know before? What does it tell us about how nanotubes interact with those cells - not just “CNTs could cause cancer,” but what are the actual mechanisms by which cells and CNTs encounter each other? How could we design CNTs to tell us more about mesothelial cells in experimental conditions? How could we design CNTs to interact less harmfully with mesothelial cells in real world conditions? It’s those kinds of questions, which connect the dots from past to present to future, that seem to be missing in nano discourse. Instead, we see to many vague evocations of various pasts and vague assertions of various futures, with no clear bridge between them.
Cyrus Mody is an Assistant Professor of History at Rice University. His book, Instrumental Community: Probe Microscopy and the Path to Nanotechnology (to be published by MIT Press) explores the co-evolution of an experimental technology (the scanning tunneling microscope and atomic force microscope and their variants) and the community of researchers who built, bought, used, sold, theorized, or borrowed these instruments.
Medical Product Safety: a World View
by Susan F. Wood, Ph.D.
Last year, Congress passed new legislation on the Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007.This legislation, while limited, made some significant steps forward, see here and here. It reauthorizes the user fee systems for drugs, biologics and medical devices, and expands FDA’s authority on labeling, requires new transparency for the Agency and establishes broader registries of clinical trials and requires results from clinical trials to be released to the public The public concern over the handling of medications like Vioxx and Ketek highlighted problems ranging from companies misleading FDA, to fraud by investigators, to FDA scientific management and lack of priority on safety studies. The new law provided some additional requirements on safety as well as some additional resources for this critical area. It also added some new requirements focused on reducing financial conflicts of interest of FDA Advisory Committee members.
When FDAAA was signed into law last fall, many thought that this would be the last major FDA legislation to be taken up by Congress for another 5 years. But it seems we were mistaken.
The recent safety problems with Heparin, leading to a large recall of Heparin products earlier this year, highlighted different issues regarding drug (and other medical product) safety. Batches of heparin were contaminated by oversulfated chondroitin sulfate produced in 12 facilities in China. Questions about manufacturing quality, inspections and oversight by FDA of international facilities raised new concerns that are different from questions about post-market surveillance and safety of newly approved drugs or devices.
Congress has begun holding hearings – and new draft legislation is being considered in both the House and the Senate.
From Dr. Janet Woodcock, Director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, April 29, 2008:
“GLOBALIZATION OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND MANUFACTURING
FDA increasingly faces challenges due to globalization of drug development and manufacturing. Not long ago, most drugs were developed, studied, and manufactured in the U.S. Today we routinely review and monitor drugs – both innovator and generic – that are studied or manufactured, at least in part, outside the U.S. The supply chain for finished drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients now frequently links to manufacturing sites in China and India. With the globalization of the supply chain, FDA faces an ever-growing number of brokers, traders, distributors, repackagers, and other players involved in the import of pharmaceuticals. The changing world – including the fundamental challenges of many different languages and protocols – requires FDA to devise and evaluate more complex risk scenarios and apply more sophisticated technologies to screen and evaluate drugs entering the U.S. to ensure their quality.
Our generic drug program illustrates the dramatic changes during the last 10-15 years. Since 1992, we witnessed a 400 percent increase in the number of foreign establishments named in generic drug marketing applications. Today, in India alone, there are nearly 25 times as many drug establishments as there were eight years ago. Yet, FDA must be able to determine that facilities named in drug applications will meet FDA standards for marketed drug safety and effectiveness, no matter where they are located. FDA is taking many important steps to provide this assurance.”
The new draft legislation focuses on ensuring that foreign facilities are inspected at the same frequency and with the same rigor as domestic facilities (they currently are not). This would require inspections at a frequency of once every two years. A risk-based approach is also being considered, which would allow FDA to inspect at a different frequency depending on the level of risk of a particular product, what type of product and variables such as inspection history and whether the country where the facility is located has its own inspection system that is deemed adequate by FDA. This legislation would also set up a foreign inspectorate of scientists and inspectors specializing in international facilities and manufacturing.
A critical piece of FDA’s response and proposed solutions is having an adequate IT system that links the data from the different Centers (Drugs, Biologics, and Devices) with the inspections data and the information specific to facilities and batches of products. Currently, multiple disconnected systems exist and none are comprehensive.
FDA needs resources, authority, and the directives to tackle this aspect of medical product safety. Hopefully new legislation and adequate funding will jumpstart this process, that is already far behind.
Food safety is a separate but related issue – which FDA and Congress must tackle. There are various proposals addressing Food Safety on the table, but I’ll leave that for another day.
Susan F. Wood, PhD is Research Professor at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, where she is part of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP). She also served as Director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health from 2000-2005 and is a member of the Board of Directors for Scientists and Engineers for America.
This entry was originally posted at the PumpHandle.
A physicist’s place is on the ballot
By Lesley Stone, JD
Few elected officials, from the President to members of the local school board, have strong backgrounds in science or engineering. Yet, many of the complex problems we face—in areas such as innovation and competitiveness, health care, energy, climate change, education, and even our physical infrastructure—have policy solutions that depend on an understanding of the sciences.
It’s time more scientists got involved in politics. Scientists have a contribution to make to public life. They have a way of thinking that is transferable to the policy realm; problem-solving, evidence-based thinking and testing hypotheses are all likely to generate good policy.
Just as important, scientists have specific knowledge that policymakers from other disciplines lack. Training in law (the background of many of our legislators) is useful for thinking rationally and weighing evidence, but it does not enhance understanding of the importance of nanotechnology, public health strategies, or the processes at work in climate change. These are all areas of knowledge critical to finding solutions to the obstacles we face. Further, the more diverse the expertise and experience a legislature has to draw on, the more likely it is to come up with innovative solutions that will keep us on the right track.
Eight members of the US House of Representatives hold doctoral degrees in science, including the newest addition, Bill Foster of Illinois, who is the third physicist. These scientists have contributed to law and policy in important ways, as have many who serve in state and local government. They are proof that it is possible to serve one’s community not only in the lab, but also in civic life.
It’s easier than you think to get involved. The local school board is a great place to start. There are about 15,000 school boards in the United States, the vast majority of them elected. Most campaigns cost less than $1000—though in bigger cities the cost is closer to $10,000—and serving may mean a commitment of about five hours a week. Yet this commitment is minor considering the important contributions a scientist can make.
Who better than a scientist to evaluate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula? In some parts of the country, people are searching for innovative ways to insert creationism into science classes. A scientist can keep this from happening by explaining the difference between a scientific theory and an untestable hypothesis. Even in localities where intelligent design is not an issue, we are struggling to find effective ways to help our students learn cutting-edge material so they are prepared for an increasingly competitive world. Study after study shows children in the United States are falling behind in critical areas of math and science; publicizing this issue has not made it go away. But, serving on a school board where you can help evaluate your community’s educational programs and options could be a step in the right direction.
For those interested in learning more about running for office, Scientists and Engineers for America, along with a group of scientific societies, scheduled a May 10th workshop in Washington, DC, to teach scientists and engineers the nuts and bolts of running a campaign.
Even if running for office is not on your horizon, it is important to take action. Most scientists believe science should have a place at the table when important policy decisions are made; scientific advisory boards should include the best scientists available; scientists working for the government should be free to discuss their research, regardless of the political implications; and when science is misrepresented by the government, people who speak out should not fear retribution. Yet, well-documented breaches of these principles have become all too common. To ensure that our government values science, we must demonstrate that we value it, both by asking candidates for office hard questions and through the ballot box.
If scientists invest time and energy in politics, whether by running for office or by making sure that potential representatives know what their constituents value, policy will change for the better. Not getting involved means accepting the status quo.
Lesley Stone is executive director of Scientists and Engineers for America This piece was originally published in Symmetry Magazine.
The problem of funding in surgical research
Originally posted at Respectful Insolence, a member of Science Blogs.
I hate it when I fall behind in my journal reading. Of course, it happens all the time, as you might expect, with my time sandwiched between running my lab, writing grants, seeing patients, and operating. Sometimes, though, I get a chance to try to catch up a bit. Such was the case the other day, but unfortunately I came across an article that almost made me wish I hadn’t. It was a study published in the February issue of Annals of Surgery1 and it showed that the situation is much worse than I expected. it also shows that I may be a rarer bird than I thought I was, and not just because of my admittedly strange personality. What the study showed is that surgeons are hugely under-represented in the ranks of physicians holding NIH grants and that the situation is getting worse.
The study, carried out by a group from UCSF and NHLBI, systematically examined data regarding success rates for applying for NIH grants among surgeon-scientists and compared them to non-surgeon-scientists. The results were not pretty–if you’re a surgeon.
Basically, what the investigators did was to obtain research project grant (RPG) data from the NIH Consolidated Grant Applicant and Fellow File (CGAFF) or from the NIH website. The CGAFF contains data about investigators who have applied for grants and contracts from the NIH and other PHS agencies since the very beginning, way back the grant system was first established in 1937. They then obtained medical school manpower data from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) faculty roster. Total NIH RPG application and award data were compared with application and award data from all surgical investigators (including PhDs working in surgical departments) and then with surgical investigators with an M.D. degree. This allowed them to break down the data into applications and success rates by surgical and nonsurgical investigators between 1982 and 2004. (Note: 2004 was the year I managed to compete successfully for my first and thus far only R01.)
The first thing that stood out for me was just how small a component of total NIH awards. Surgical awards peaked at 3.5% of total awards in 1992 and have been steadily declining since then to an all-time low of 2.2% of total awards in 2004, which is the last year for which data were available. Also notable was that, between 1982 and 2004, the rate of increase in the number of awards was 71.2% for non-surgeons, 41.4% for all surgical investigators, and only 23.8% for surgical investigators with M.D.’s. It was first speculated that the reason for the low representation of surgeons in the NIH funding profile was because of a lower success rate between surgeons and non-surgeons (25% versus 29%, respectively), but further analysis indicated that that relatively small difference was not enough to account for the discrepancy. What might account for the discrepancy is the much lower rate of increase in surgical applications for NIH grants, which was only a little more than half the rate of increase for non-surgical applications (a 67% increase versus a 124% increase) over the time period examined. Meanwhile, consistent with a trend in all NIH-funded investigators that has gotten the NIH worried, the age at first NIH grants for surgical investigators was 41.8 years, and on a more encouraging note resubmission rates for surgical investigators didn’t differ significantly from the overall rate. The bottom line was that the underrepresentation of surgeon-investigators in the ranks of NIH-funded investigators was primarily accounted for by the low and diminishing rate of submitting applications by surgeons at the very time when the number of new applications to the NIH is skyrocketing.
I agree with many of the authors’ speculations about why surgeons submit so few grant applications to the NIH relative to other physician-investigators and relative to PhD-investigators. There are three big ones that I see.
Clearly, the most significant impediment to a surgeon doing research is time pressure. Surgery has always been a very time-intensive specialty. Certainly other specialties are also time-intensive, but the different aspect of surgery is that in addition to the cognitive skills necessary to practice it, it is a very technical specialty. In other words, practice makes perfect, and for the particularly demanding surgical specialties, it’s very difficult to remain skilled without being active operating. This is something that hasn’t changed in 23 years; in fact, the situation has arguably gotten worse with the influx of technology into surgery, including advanced laparoscopic procedures with a high learning curve and a requirement for a high degree of technical prowess and robotics. The authors don’t even mention this; instead they tried to blame resident work hour reductions for the increased time pressure on surgeon-investigators. Give me a break. Resident work hour restrictions and the shift in workload to attendings that has resulted from it may well be a factor, but at best it’s probably a minor one. To try to blame a trend that goes back at least to when I was a resident on a change in residencies that has only been in place around four years is a specious argument. Indeed, the authors’ own data would tend to argue against resident work hour restrictions, as the data clearly show that the decline in surgeon applications for NIH funding is a trend that goes back to at least the mid-1990s, long before mandatory work hour restrictions were in place anywhere other than New York state.
To me, the second strongest impediment is economic pressure. Since I became a physician 20 years ago, the financial model of paying for medical and surgical care has changed radically due to the managed care revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. In the good old days, surgery was lucrative enough that many academic departments of surgery had fairly generous slush funds to fund research by junior faculty, allowing them to develop preliminary data to use in grant applications. However, with managed care and ever-declining reimbursements adjusted for inflation, in order to generate the same clinical income, surgeons have to work a lot harder. Worse, some departments expect their surgeons to cover their entire salary with billing, along with secretarial support and rent for their offices. That’s almost impossible to do as a half-time surgeon, much less a quarter-time surgeon, which would be better for doing credible lab-based translational research. I happen to be extremely fortunate to have a cancer institute and department of surgery that are willing to subsidize my research activities to the tune of my being able spend more time in the lab than out of it, but such situations are rare. I also have no illusions that my freedom to do research would go away pretty fast if I ever lose my research funding, and I especially have no illusions that I’m a lock to hang onto my research funding, given the current budget woes at the NIH.
There is also the problem of research training. Unlike many medical specialties. surgeons receive their research experience after the second year of a five year residency, at which point they take either one or two years in a research lab, whereas most other specialties take their training after residency, which makes their transition into a research-oriented career more natural. One thing surgeons do share with their non-surgical colleagues is that they’re research training is generally too brief to prepare them to compete successfully for NIH grants. The difference is that not only is a surgeon’s research training too brief but by the time he or she finishes his residency it’s three years old. For most areas of research it might as well be ten. Couple this with the long and arduous nature of surgical training, many new surgeons, even ones who are very interested in research, aren’t too thrilled with the prospect of more years of research training. Too many of them may have little choice anyway, given the record debt levels that medical students are finishing with.
The authors go on to describe a number of potential strategies to cultivate surgeon-investigators. First, they have to be recognized as valuable. Naturally, I’m not an unbiased source, but a surgeon brings some unique attributes to the translational research endeavor. Indeed, the authors argue as much, and they are correct:
Along with other clinical specialists, surgeons have an important intimate familiarity with patients and their diseases. Surgeons have access to tissue for banking and are in a position to study and apply device-based and molecular therapies that require local delivery. Furthermore, the surgical personality, which is inherently impatient with the status quo, may be important in helping to drive translational efforts.
To me, perhaps the key values that surgeons bring to translational research is access to tissue for molecular studies and the ability actually to assist in the design and testing of new medical devices. The “surgical personality,” however, is not entirely an unalloyed good. It is true that surgeons tend to be driven and unsatisfied with the status quo. That’s good. It’s also true that surgeons tend to be tinkerers. That’s also good. The downside is that we are sometimes too impatient to develop the preliminary data necessary in the development of new molecular and targeted therapies, which is odd, given how amazingly patient surgeons can be while doing long and involved surgical procedures.
Although the proposal that some minimum number of grants be reserved for surgical investigators will never fly (after all, why surgery and not other specialties?) Some of the strategies make sense, particularly restructuring the surgical residency program for aspiring surgeon-researchers to make the research more relevant to becoming an independent investigator. Another idea is to cultivate surgical centers of excellence in research in order to train new surgeon researchers in a less haphazard manner. This idea has potential in that such centers would attract students interested in research, but I see a downside as well in that it could produce a “two-tier” surgical training system. Finally, certainly mentorship is critical, but the problem is that there are fewer and fewer mentors who can guide aspiring young surgical researchers. It’s a well-documented statistic that there is a major attrition in surgical researchers with age, with many simply giving up and “going straight clinical.”
Perhaps the most depressing thing about this analysis is that one likely explanation for such a low number of surgeons applying for NIH grants is that there is a perception in surgical departments that the odds are so long that it’s just not worth the effort, that the hurdles in the way are impossible to jump. This is a problem that could potentially be solved with more money, but enough money to solve it is unlikely to be forthcoming and would certainly be fiercely competed for by other specialties. The real problem is systemic and cultural. We as academic surgeons who are established (and basic scientists will find it hard to believe that I, with my one R01 that I haven’t renewed yet, count as “established” as a surgical investigator) must somehow find a way to attract, encourage, and support new surgeons interested in research. At the current rate of decline, I fear that by the time I retire the NIH-funded surgical investigator will be as rare as a brown hair in my head in a sea of gray will be.
REFERENCE:
1. Mann, M., Tendulkar, A., Birgir, N., Howard, C., Ratcliffe, M.B. (2008). National Institutes of Health Funding for Surgical Research
. Annals of Surgery, 247(2), 217-221.
