When Science Goes Wrong (43 page)

It can be argued, however, that regulatory control and safety consciousness is a significant impediment to science – that it actually causes more harm than it averts. If we look back at some of the historical highlights of medical research, for example, we see what may look in hindsight like reckless risk-taking and a near-total lack of concern for ethical considerations.

William Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood through a series of experiments on unanaesthetised animals that would turn the stomach of a modern reader. Edward Jenner picked an eight-year-old boy at random to test his first smallpox vaccine, then later inoculated him with smallpox in an effort to see if he had become immune to the disease – all, apparently, without so much as a by-your-leave. Walter Reed tested his mosquito theory for the transmission of yellow fever by having his colleagues expose themselves to insects that had fed on previous victims, causing one of them to develop a fatal infection. Thomas Starzl’s first liver-transplant patient died shortly after surgery, as did every one of his patients over the next four years. Who would persist in the face of such odds: a madman, or a visionary?

To wish that none of these things had happened is to wish that none of those great advances saw the light of day. Risk-taking is part of scientific exploration, just as it was part of terrestrial exploration. No one expected that all those ships that set out for the Spice Islands would return safely home, and many didn’t. Maybe we should allow the quest for the Magic Islands of the periodic table to take its victims too, even if they be self-inflicted victims like Victor Ninov.

This would be particularly true if there is a certain indivisible character trait that predisposes people both to the taking of great risks and to great scientific achievement. Many risk-taking scientists never make great discoveries, certainly, but few scientists make great discoveries without taking great risks – if only the risk of devoting a lifetime to the pursuit of a scientific will-o’-the-wisp. ‘My concern,’ James Wilson told the
New York Times
after Jesse Gelsinger’s death, ‘is, I’m going to get timid, that I’ll get risk averse.’ Which, in his mind at least, meant an end to productive science.

Of course, some of the episodes described in this book happened not in the process of scientific discovery, but during the application of scientific procedures to fairly mundane tasks – the identification of a rapist, the prediction of tomorrow’s weather, the siting of a dam or the production of a germ-warfare agent. In such cases, stricter oversight could hardly cramp scientific creativity. In fact as a result of disasters like the one that struck the St. Francis Dam, large engineering projects are now tightly regulated and reviewed, greatly reducing the risk of a repetition of a calamity. The Houston Crime Lab now operates under much closer oversight than was the case when Josiah Sutton was wrongly convicted. Weather forecasters are better trained and better equipped than they were before the Great October Storm. And germ-warfare agents, hopefully, are no longer being produced.

Even with the mishaps that involved genuinely scientific episodes, some might have been avoided by steps that did not impinge greatly on the process of science itself. Getting a volcanologist to wear a hard hat or to heed seismological warnings hardly seems like a major impediment to the study of volcanoes. Asking a neuroscientist to verify the identity of the drugs he is testing doesn’t seem like putting a major roadblock in his path. Still, there may be an irreducible core of risk in science that cannot be eliminated without eliminating science’s rewards. When one very successful scientist, tissue-engineering pioneer Robert Langer, was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of MIT’s Whitehead Institute, the Institute’s announcement included the following: ‘Bob Langer’s work and life typifies so many of the strengths we aspire to at Whitehead – brash, audacious, risk-taking science.’ Somehow, Langer has parlayed that risk-taking trait into 800 scientific papers and many important discoveries, while at the same time avoiding all the traps that risk-taking makes scientists prone to. I sincerely hope that his science never does ‘go wrong’ in any serious way, but if it should do so, I hope that he and others in his situation are judged for the entirety of their work, not for that one misstep. For it is so often just one such misstep – one momentary spasm of greed, haste, carelessness, credulity or plain bad luck – that leads to disaster.

Sources

Interviews:

Raymon Durso
, MD
, July 5, 2000.

Rebecca Folkerth, MD, July 5, 2000.

Robert Iacono, MD, July 20, 2000.

Don L Truex, DDS, September 2, 2005.

Mary Katherine (Kay) Truex De Justo, September 8, 2005. James Slosson, 2005.

Scientific Publications:

RP Iacono, ZS Tang, JC Mazziotta, et al. (1992). ‘Bilateral fetal grafts for Parkinson’s disease: 22 months’ results.’
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery
, 58:84-87.

RD Folkerth and R Durso (1996). ‘Survival and proliferation of nonneuronal tissues, with obstruction of cerebral ventricles, in a parkinsonian patient treated with fetal allografts.’
Neurology
, 46:1219-1225.

JH Kordower, TB Freeman, RAE Bakay, et al. (1997). ‘Treatment with fetal allografts.’
Neurology
, 48:1737-1738.

News Accounts:

J Perrone (1992): ‘Researchers circumvent fetal tissue transplant funding ban.’
American Medical News
, June 8.

TH Maugh, II (2007): ‘Robert Iacono, 55: Surgeon performed radical procedure on Parkinson’s patients.’
Los Angeles
Times
, June 23.

Other:

Division of Medical Quality, Medical Board of California: Decision and Order in the Matter of the Accusation against Robert Paul Iacono, MD September 12, 2005.

Interviews:

Michael Fish, August 7, 2006

Bill Giles, August 14, 2006

Anita Hart, August 16, 2006

Thomas Jung, PhD, August 7, 2006 Ewen McCallum, MSc, August 17, 2006

Books:

Mark Davison and Ian Currie (1988).
Surrey
in the Hurricane
. Froglets Publications.

Scientific Publications:

SD Burt and DA Mansfield (1988). ‘The great storm of 15-16    October 1987.’
Weather (Royal Meteorological Society)
43:90-114.

HD Lawes (1988). ‘The storm of 15-16 October 1987: A personal experience.’
Weather (Royal Meteorological Society)
43:142.

Meteorological Office (1988). ‘Report on the storm of 15/16 October 1987.’
Meteorological Magazine
117:97-140.

P Swinnerton-Dyer and RP Pearce (1988). ‘Summary and conclusions from the Secretary of State’s enquiry into the storm of 16 October 1987.’
Meteorological Magazine
117:141-144.

RM Morris and AJ Gadd (1998). ‘Forecasting the storm of 15-16 October 1987.’
Weather (Royal Meteorological Society)
43:70-90.

T Jung, E Klinker, and S Uppala (2004). ‘Reanalysis and reforecast of three major European storms using the ECMWF forecasting system. Part I: Analyses and deterministic forecasts.’ Meteorological Applications 11:243-261.

T Jung, E Klinker; and S Uppala (2005). ‘Reanalysis and reforecast of three major European storms using the ECMWF forecasting system. Part II: Ensemble forecasts.’
Meteorological Applications
12:111-122.

Other:

Met Office: The great storm of 1987 (includes animation of the storm crossing the UK). Available at: www.met-office.gov.uk/

education/secondary/students/1987.html.

BBC Weather: Michael Fish and the 1987 storm. Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/weather/bbcweather/forecasters/michael_fish_1987storm.shtml.

BBC Weather: Michael Fish MBE – The end of an era. (Includes video clip from Fish’s forecast of October 15, 1987). Available at:  www.bbc.co.uk/weather/bbcweather/forecasters/

michael_fish_retirement.shtml.

University
of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign: Online Meteorology Guide. Available at: ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/

guides/mtr/home.rxml.

Worcester
Heating Systems: Weathermen predict a warm front for Worcester. Available at: http://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/

homeowner/our-company/news/weathermen-predict-a-warm-front-for-worcester-?category=all&page=10

Interviews:

Bernard Chouet, May 23, 2006.

Charles Wood, May 12, 2006.

Books:

Victoria Bruce (2001). No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz. HarperCollins.

Stanley
Williams (2001).
Surviving Galeras
. Houghton Mifflin.

Scientific Publications:

J Stix, ML Calvache and SN Williams (eds.) (1997). ‘Galeras Volcano, Colombia: Interdisciplinary study of a Decade Volcano.’
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research
77:1-338.

H Sigurdsson (2001). ‘Volcanology: Not a “piece of cake”.’
Science
292:643-644.

News account:

R Monasterskey (2001). ‘Under the volcano: Deaths rattle one of the riskiest disciplines in science.’
Chronicle of Higher Education
, March 30. Available at: www.chronicle.com/free/v47/i29/29a01801

.htm.

International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (1994). Recommended safety measures for volcanologists. Available at: http://www.iavcei.org/documents/

safety.html

Interviews:

Colin Blakemore, PhD, June 19, 2006.

Rick Doblin, PhD, June 14/15, 2006.

Charles Grob, MD, June 16, 2006.

George Ricaurte, MD, PhD, July 26, 2006.

Scientific Publications:

UD McCann, Z Szabo, et al. (1998). ‘Positron emission tomographic evidence of toxic effect of MDMA (“Ecstasy”) on brain serotonin neurons in human beings.’
Lancet
352:1433-7.

CS Grob (2000). ‘Deconstructing Ecstasy: The politics of MDMA research.’
Addiction Research
8:549-588.

GA Ricaurte, J Yuan, et al. (2002). ‘Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA (“ecstasy”).’
Science
297:2260-3.

GA Ricaurte, J Yuan, et al. (2002). Response.
Science
300:1504-1505.

GA Ricaurte, J Yuan, et al. (2003). Retraction.
Science
301:1479.

M Mithoefer, L Jerome, and R Doblin (2003). Letter: MDMA (“Ecstasy”) and neurotoxicity.
Science
300:1504-1505.

UD McCann, Z Szabo, et al. (2005). ‘Quantitative PET studies of the serotonin transporter in MDMA users and controls using [11C]McN5652 and [11C]DASB.’
Neuropsychopharmacology
30:1741-50.

GA Ricaurte, AO Mechan, et al. (2005). ‘Amphetamine treatment similar to that used in the treatment of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder damages dopaminergic nerve endings in the striatum of adult nonhuman primates.’
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
315:91-8.