Historian Lisa Jardine, the new head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), begins her role ahead of the impending Commons vote on the human fertilisation and embryology bill. The bill crystallises several moral dilemmas about research and practice in these areas, and threatens to intensify the polarisation they induce. Whatever position Jardine takes is sure to upset some vocal group or other.
This is why the appointment of someone used to taking the long view, and accustomed to the hard knocks of public life, probably makes sense. Certainly, Jardine's popularising instincts seem right for the HFEA just now: she considers public education about fertility issues as important as the regulatory responsibilities. The HFEA has hitherto seldom shown an explicit commitment to inform.
So far, the misinformation about the bill spread by Catholic officials and other religious groups—talk of animal-human "cybrid" embryos in research as "of Frankenstein proportion"—does not seem to have dented public appreciation of the potential benefits of such research. (The "animal" component would be a mere shell for human genes.) But it is never a good idea to underestimate the determination of zealots.
Pfizer fails to subvert peer review
When scientists submit papers for publication, they usually enter into an unwritten contract of confidentiality with the journal: the paper will not be disseminated outside of the peer review process, and the identity of the reviewers will not be disclosed to the authors.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has decided that this arrangement should be subordinate to its own interests. During a lawsuit last year over alleged side-effects of its painkillers Celebrex and Bextra, it subpoenaed the New England Journal of Medicine to release the peer reviews and reviewers' identities for papers published on the drugs, along with details of the journals' internal editorial deliberations. The NEJM's refusal to do so was upheld by a federal court in Massachusetts at the end of March.
Pfizer's lawyers say that the information could help to exonerate the company in deciding to put the drugs on sale. Bextra was withdrawn in 2005 after claims that it could cause heart attacks and strokes; Celebrex remains on the market.
"The public has no interest in protecting the editorial process of a scientific journal," Pfizer's lawyers have said. But the public has every interest in knowing that scientific claims will be checked out by independent experts who not only are guaranteed anonymity but do not expose themselves to the danger of litigation. A counterargument is that information relevant to public health should not be kept confidential—but, after all, drug companies are under no obligation to disclose their own tests and trials.
Besides, Pfizer has not specified what it hoped to find in the documents.The company may be simply fishing for anything that might help its case, rather than acting on a belief that the NEJM holds pivotal evidence. The court's decision is the right one, but will it persuade drug companies that they cannot rewrite the rules by which science is conducted?
Nasa loses a true voice of science
The resignation of Nasa's science chief Alan Stern in April is a symptom of all that is wrong with the US space agency. Stern has given no official reason for his abrupt departure, which makes many people pin the blame on his frustrating relationship with Nasa's leadership, specifically its head Mike Griffin. This is despite Stern's assertion in his resignation statement that Griffin is "the best administrator Nasa has ever had." Stern's aim to keep projects on schedule and within budget, both persistent problems for Nasa, is hard to fault, but it has caused a collision of priorities.
A highly respected planetary scientist, Stern has been seen as a true voice of science at Nasa, favouring projects that teach us something about the universe. But Nasa increasingly seems compelled to support programmes that pander to the romanticised American vision of space exploration. Griffin has frozen the budget for fundamental science in order to fund a return manned mission to the moon—a political rather than scientific venture. Stern also tried to reduce the focus of missions on Mars, which are happening at the expense of the outer planets.
The crunch seems to have come over Stern's decision in March to shut down Opportunity, one of the two robotic rovers exploring the surface of Mars. When Griffin found out, he reversed the decision. But Stern's choice made sense: the rovers have long fulfilled their objectives. The problem was that the public loves them: the plan became headline news and led to objections in congress.
The rovers are portrayed like pets: newspapers talked about Opportunity being "put to sleep" rather than switched off. This pathetic fallacy is a projection of the longing to put humans on Mars. Yet cripplingly expensive human spaceflight projects will ultimately give the taxpayer far less value for money than the kind of missions Stern supported. For now, absurd sentimentality has deprived Nasa of a highly capable head of science.
