You might have seen the New York Times article yesterday so delightfully called "Of gay sheep, modern science and bad publicity." In case the article has disappeared into the archive by the time you read this, briefly, it was a rather funny cautionary tale about a scientist who set out to study homosexuality in sheep, made one too many comments about the possible implications in people, and ended up getting skewered by the press and the blogosphere, who thought the point of his research was eventually to alter people's sexuality.

I was particularly struck by a comment that the scientist, Charles Roselli made.

Mentioning human implications, he said, is “in the nature of the way we write our grants” and talk to reporters. Scientists who do basic research find themselves in a bind, he said, adding, “We have been forced to draw connections in a way that we can justify our research.”

As a reporter, I'm guilty of this myself. Drawing human conenctions makes the story more accessible and it's an easy, if cheap, way of drawing the reader in. Even in my previous life as a scientist, I had an American Heart Association grant although my thesis, on lipid transport, was classic cell biology and had little to do with heart disease. That's where the money was, and so that's how we wrote the grant.

But all and said done, it is dishonest, isn't it? Is Roselli right? Is the system so warped now that we have to lie about human implications to justify working on important, but obscure, questions in science? Have you done it?

Posted by Apoorva Mandavilli at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If I smoked cigarettes I think I’d have to grow my own tobacco. There’s nothing inherently evil about the plant itself. The tobacco companies, on the other hand….but wait, I must retain my objectivity.

It’s tough to do that though with the most recent news. Harvard researchers have confirmed reports that the tobacco industry has raised the nicotine content of cigarettes steadily over the last several years—with the aim, of course, to get more people hooked on their product.

The recent study is sure to add fuel to efforts to bring tobacco regulation under the umbrella of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Legislation to do just that failed last year but there are signs it will be reintroduced in the new, Democratic congress. But is it a good idea?

That effort is endorsed by many public health groups, David Kessler, the former FDA commissioner and anti-tobacco gadfly, as well as Phillip Morris itself (some speculate the tobacco giant would keep its industry lead in a clamped down advertising environment). Most recently, the New York Times and the Washington Post added their voices to the call for FDA oversight.

I had heard rumors that at least one leader in the tobacco control area, UC San Francisco professor Stan Glantz, was more skeptical. So I called him up.

Glantz clarified that in principle, FDA regulation is a good thing. He’s just worried about the details.

“I think it’s obscene that the FDA doesn’t have jurisdiction over tobacco,” he told me, “The real question is how you do it.”

He says the law must be written very strictly to make sure tobacco companies can’t manipulate the agency—which doesn’t exactly have an airtight reputation when it comes to resisting political influence (think plan B contraception).

“The real risk is that you will end up with a process that will allow tobacco companies to claim that they have FDA approved cigarettes.” Unlike some tobacco control experts, Glantz is wary of efforts to create a special regulatory category for cigarettes, which he says could create room for a special brand of tobacco company mischief.

But he says there’s a better chance than last year that a good law will emerge, with a new party in charge. If congress does bring up the issue again, let’s hope it is serious about using the FDA to clamp down on cigarette companies.

Meanwhile, if you must smoke—I endorse backyard tobacco agriculture.

Posted by Charlotte Schubert at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By the time you read this, PETA will have held a demonstration today in front of the Cleveland Clinic, protesting the unauthorized killing of a dog during a sales demonstration.

On 10 January, a neurologist at the prestigious clinic induced an aneurysm in an anesthetized dog and then used a new device made by California based Micrus Endovascular Corporation to treat aneurysms. The dog was later sacrificed because of the damage caused by the aneurysm.

PETA says after a whistleblower at the clinic alerted the group about the procedure, it asked the doctor to use a high-tech silicone model instead—to no avail. It is asking the clinic to enforce the use of alternatives to animal testing wherever possible.

The Cleveland Clinic has apparently finished its preliminary investigation and disciplined the doctor, although that didn’t involve sacking him. The clinic has seen some rather trying times lately.

A local television station is reporting today that a USDA official was at the clinic. The agency could fine the clinic up to $3700 per violation and revoke its animal research license.

According to the clinic, the doctor applied to the institutional animal care and use committee for permission to induce the aneurysm, but hadn’t received a response. The clinic says they would have rejected it—and I have to agree. Although the USDA technically allows the use of animals for demonstrating medical devices, I don’t think sacrificing a dog for a sales demonstration falls under acceptable use of animals for research.

Posted by Apoorva Mandavilli at 04:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)