Globalizing science
jstemwedel | February 9, 2010Here are some of the thoughts and questions that stayed with me from this session. (Here are my tweets from the session and the session's wiki page.)
The session was led by John McKay and Eric Michael Johnson. John posted the text of his presentation and Eric posted his presentation a la YouTube. I'm going to take this as permission to skip doing a proper recap here. Instead, I'm going to write about the big ideas this session raised for me.
First, I'm struck by how easy it is for those of us who were trained to do science to know very little about where scientific practices come from --…
jstemwedel | January 18, 2010Session description: We will be talking about how the history of science and the history of the open-access movement have intersected. Steven Johnson touches on this theme in his latest book, The Invention of Air, in that 18th century British polymath Joseph Priestley was a strong advocate of publishing scientific data widely in order to create a greater dialogue between scientists. While Johnson only mentions this briefly in the case of Priestley, this theme runs strongly through the history of science and is what makes the debate over the patenting of genes or the availability of open-…
jstemwedel | June 16, 2009A day later than promised, let's kick off our discussion of "Research Rashomon: Lessons from the Cameroon Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Trial Site" (PDF). The case study concerns a clinical trial of whether tenofovir, an antiretroviral drug, could prevent HIV infection. Before it was halted in the face of concerns raised by activists and the media, the particular clinical trial discussed in this case was conducted in Cameroon. Indeed, one of the big questions the activists raised about the trial was whether it was ethical to site it in Cameroon.
From the case study:
Tenofovir was first…
jstemwedel | June 10, 2009Almost a month ago, I told you about a pair of new case studies released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides which examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were halted. In that post, I also proposed that we read and discuss these case studies as a sort of ethics book club.
Next Monday, June 15, we'll be kicking off our discussion of the first case study, "Research Rashomon: Lessons from the Cameroon Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Trial Site" (PDF).
The case study is on the long side (54…
jstemwedel | May 15, 2009Earlier this week, I found out about a pair of new case studies being released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides. These cases examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of microbicides antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were halted. Here are some details:
Between August 2004 and February 2005 the HIV prevention world was rocked by the suspension and cancellation of PrEP effectiveness trials in Cambodia and Cameroon. To the considerable surprise of researchers, advocates, and donors, the trials became embroiled in…
jstemwedel | April 8, 2009The Independent reports that drug giant Pfizer has agreed to pay a $75 million settlement nine years after Nigerian parents whose children died in a drug trial brought legal action against the company.
It's the details of that drug trial that are of interest here:
In 1996, the company needed a human trial for what it hoped would be a pharmaceutical "blockbuster", a broad spectrum antibiotic that could be taken in tablet form. The US-based company sent a team of its doctors into the Nigerian slum city of Kano in the midst of an appaling meningitis epidemic to perform what it calls a "…
jstemwedel | January 19, 2009There were some really good discussions of ally work in the gender in science session led by Zuska, Alice, and Abel and in the race in science session led by Danielle Lee and AcmeGirl.
One of the issues that has become clearer to me is that there is an inescapable asymmetry in the relationship between allies and those (like scientists of color or women scientists) they are trying to support. (I think the discussion at Samia's blog helped me feel like I got it well enough to put into words.) An ally is someone who wouldn't have to care about the difficulties faced by members of the group s/…
jstemwedel | January 9, 2009You know what makes an already scary world a lot scarier? When a government decides it's a crime for disease researchers to do their job.
From Declan Butler:
Iran has summarily tried two of the nation's HIV researchers with communicating with an "enemy government," in a half-day trial that started and ended on 31 December in Tehran's Revolutionary Court. There will be no further court hearings, and a verdict is expected within days.
The brothers, Arash and Kamiar Alaei, who have achieved international acclaim for their progressive HIV-prevention programme, have been held in Tehran's…
jstemwedel | October 22, 2008Maybe you heard about the melamine contamination issue when tainted pet food started killing pets. But, if you don't have a pet, maybe you didn't worry so much.
Or maybe you noticed when tainted infant formula started sending infants to the hospital. Stuff that harms babies (even way far away in China) is really sad. But if you're not currently caring for a baby that ingests infant formula, eventually your attention wandered.
Then the news came that melamine levels were testing high in treats like White Rabbit candies and Panda's March cookies -- treats that may have been on your shelves (…
jstemwedel | October 9, 20082008 is the tenth year of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards to remarkable female scientists from around the world. Indeed, our sister-site, ScienceBlogs.de, covered this year's award ceremony and is celebrating women in science more generally with a For Women in Science blog. (It, like the rest of ScienceBlogs.de, is in German. Just so you know.)
In addition to the global contest, three further scholarships are given to women scientists in Germany. But, the only women eligible for these awards are women with kids. (The rationale for this is that childcare options in…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2008In the July 18, 2008 issue of Science, I noticed a news item, "Old Samples Trip Up Tokyo Team":
A University of Tokyo team has retracted a published research paper because it apparently failed to obtain informed consent from tissue donors or approval from an institutional review board (IRB). Other papers by the same group are under investigation by the university. Observers believe problems stem in part from guidelines that don't sufficiently explain how to handle samples collected before Japan established informed consent procedures.
The samples in question were "legacy samples", samples…
Research with vulnerable populations: considering the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (part 2).
jstemwedel | January 11, 2008In an earlier post, I looked at a research study by Nelson et al. [1] on how the cognitive development of young abandoned children in Romania was affected by being raised in institutional versus foster care conditions. Specifically, I examined the explanation the researchers gave to argue that their work was not only scientifically sound but also ethical.
In this post, I examine the accompanying policy forum article, Millum and Emmanuel, "The Ethics of International Research with Abandoned Children" [2]. Millum and Emanuel are in the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center of the…
Research with vulnerable populations: considering the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (part 1).
jstemwedel | January 9, 2008The Neurocritic alerted me, in a comment on an earlier post, to a pair of papers in the 21 December 2007 issue of Science that raise some difficult ethical questions about what sorts of research are permissible. Quoth the Neurocritic:
This may be a little off-topic, but I was wondering if you read this article in Science, beginning of abstract pasted below.
In a randomized controlled trial, we compared abandoned children reared in institutions to abandoned children placed in institutions but then moved to foster care. Young children living in institutions were randomly assigned to…
jstemwedel | December 31, 2007The One Laptop Per Child program's Give One Get One promotion (which I blogged about back in November) has been extended through the end of December 31 (today!!).
If you're in the U.S. or Canada, for $399 ($200 of which is tax deductible) you can donate a spiffy new and super-cool XO laptop to a child in a developing country and get one for yourself.
Santa (who apparently reads this blog) availed himself of the offer and brought an XO laptop to the sprogs. It's set up with Linux (a plus for many people), although some bits are a little buggy (but free upgrades are expected to be available…
jstemwedel | November 15, 2007I just found out about something cool for which the window of opportunity closes in eleven days:
Through November 26, the One Laptop Per Child project has a Give One Get One deal (in the U.S. and Canada) wherein you can donate a spiffy new and super-cool XO laptop to a child in a developing country and get one to give to a child in your life (although, presumably, your inner-child might persuade you to keep it for yourself if you aren't acquainted with any kids).
The XO laptop is an impressive feat of engineering, and distributing these beauties is part of a plan that really speaks to me:…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007In the July 16 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (secure behind a paywall), the article "FBI Reaches Out to Campuses" [1] caught my attention. The gist of it is that academic scientists are increasingly the targets of foreign espionage, where the stakes have less to do with national security than potentially huge economic losses. The FBI would like to help academic scientists avoid being dupes and giving scientists in other countries an unfair advantage.
From the article:
[FBI chief of counterintelligence strategy Thomas J.] Mahlik notes that classified research usually starts off…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007Almost a year ago, I learned about the case of the Tripoli six, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician in Libya sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of children with HIV despite the fact that the best scientific evidence indicated that the children were infected due to negligence in the hospital well before these health care workers even arrived in Libya.
I asked you to write letters on behalf of the Tripoli six, in the hopes that they might get another trial in which the scientific evidence mattered to the verdict. Good people that you are, I know that lots of you did write…
jstemwedel | December 16, 2006Only a few days out from the 19 December verdict in the Tripoli 6 case, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that the Bush administration honestly couldn't be bothered that Libya shows every sign of being ready to execute foreign healthcare workers who the scientific evidence indicates did not commit the crime with which they have been charged. Otherwise, you'd figure that the State Department spokesman, once questioned about the case, would bother to do his homework and figure out at least the bare facts of the situation. He did not.
So the lives of healthcare workers who went to Libya…
jstemwedel | December 6, 2006You may remember the plight of the Tripoli Six (also known as the Benghazi Six), the physician and five nurses on trial in Libya for infecting 400 children in the hospital where they were working with HIV even though there is overwhelming evidence that the most likely route of infection was poor hospital hygeine, probably before any of these six health care workers even set foot in Libya. (Nature provides details of the scientific analysis of the evidence in this PDF.)
While the public outcry from the scientific community in support of the Tripoli Six has been great, those watching the trial…
jstemwedel | October 14, 2006As Revere notes, the trial of the Tripoli six is scheduled to resume on October 31. This means the time for serious action is now.
As Mike Dunford points out,
If you want to do something more than just get mad, if you want to try to change things, you will need to do more than read blog articles and post comments. You need to write people. You need to call people. You need to send faxes and emails.
Honest to goodness, a letter on paper, in an envelope, addressed and stamped to get to its destination, is going to signal that this really matters to you in a way that emails will not -- because…