There has been a working group of the Advisory Committee to the Director (of NIH, aka Francis Collins) which has been examining the Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health Trial in the wake of a hullabaloo that broke into public earlier this year. Background on this from Jocelyn Kaiser at Science, from the NYT, and the WaPo. (I took up the sleazy tactics of the alleged profession of journalism on this issue here.)
The working group’s report is available now [pdf].
Page 7 of that report:
There were sustained interactions (from at least 2013) between the eventual Principal Investigator (PI) of the MACH trial and three members of NIAAA leadership prior to, and during development of, FOAs for planning and main grants to fund the MACH trial
•
These interactions appear to have provided the eventual PI with a competitive advantage not available to other applicants, and effectively steered funding to this investigator
Page 11:
NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) should ensure that program staff do not inappropriately provide non-public information, or engage in deliberations that either give the appearance of, or provide, an advantage to any single, or subset of, investigator(s)
•
The NIH should examine additional measures to assiduously avoid providing, or giving the appearance of providing, an advantage to any single, or subset of, investigator(s) (for example, in guiding the scientific substance of preparing grant applications or responding to reviewer comments)
The webcast of the meeting of the ACD on Day 2 covers the relevant territory but is not yet available in archived format. I was hoping to find the part where Collins apparently expressed himself on this topic, as described here.
In the wake of the decision, Collins said NIH officials would examine other industry-NIH ties to make sure proper procedures have been followed, and seek out even “subtle examples of cozy relationships” that might undermine research integrity.
When I saw all of this I could only wonder if Francis Collins is familiar with the RFA process at the NIH.
If you read RFAs and take the trouble to see what gets funded out of them you come to the firm belief that there are a LOT of “sustained interactions” between the PO(s) that are pushing the RFA and the PI that is highly desired to be the lucky awardee. The text of the RFAs in and of themselves often “giv(e) the appearance of providing, and advantage to any single, or subset of, investigator(s)”. And they sure as heck provide certain PIs with “a competitive advantage not available to other applicants”.
This is the way RFAs work. I am convinced. It is going to take on huge mountain of evidence to the contrary to counter this impression which can be reinforced by looking at some of the RFAs in your closest fields of interest and seeing who gets funded and for what. If Collins cares to include failed grant applications from those PIs that lead up to the RFA being generated (in some cases) I bet he finds that this also supports the impression.
I really wonder sometimes.
I wonder if NIH officialdom is really this clueless about how their system works?
…or do they just have zero compunction about dissembling when they know full well that these cozy little interactions between PO and favored PI working to define Funding Opportunity Announcements are fairly common?
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Disclaimer: As always, Dear Reader, I have related experiences. I’ve competed unsuccessfully on more than one occasion for a targeted FOA where the award went to the very obvious suspect lab. I’ve also competed successfully for funding on a topic for which I originally sought funding under those targeted FOAs- that takes the sting out. A little. I also suspect I have at least once received grant funding that could fairly be said to be the result of “sustained interactions” between me and Program staff that provided me “a competitive advantage” although I don’t know the extent to which this was not available to other PIs.
Drivers are unsafe at any Blood Alcohol Concentration?
January 22, 2014
A reasonably provocative paper which suggests that automobile drivers are impaired at a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as low as 0.01% has recently appeared.
Phillips DP, Sousa AL, Moshfegh RT. Official blame for drivers with very low blood alcohol content: there is no safe combination of drinking and driving.Inj Prev. 2014 Jan 7. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2013-040925. [Epub ahead of print][Pubmed][Publisher]
When I was first told of this finding, my initial curiosity was not so much about the findings but more about the design. It is incredibly difficult to come up with ways to compare drinking driver versus non-drinking driver stats in field studies or data mining retrospectives.
The authors drew data from US traffic fatalities1 recorded in the National Center for Health Statistics database and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System database. The study sought to test the hypothesis that driver BAC would be related to the driver being determined to be solely and officially at blame for the crash. There are numerous factors that were coded for drivers including “under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication” and “driving on wrong side of the road”. The “under the influence…” factor was dropped from all analyses for the obvious reasons that it would contaminate their test of hypothesis.
This is important for the reader to grapple with his or her most obvious complaint about this design. If the police officer is determining the responsibility and can smell (or otherwise detect) alcohol on one driver, this puts a bias in the outcome measure (responsibility for the crash) that would tend to correlate with the thing being tested (BAC). So the authors focused on the factors that were seemingly unambiguous. Such as “running off road” or “driving wrong way on one-way” versus “unsafe speed for conditions” and other ambiguous factors that depend on a police judgement.
The authors calculated the Sole Official Blame (SOB) as the number of drivers officially and solely blamed for the crash divided by the number of drivers officially assigned no blame for the crash. They also calculated the percentage of drivers blamed solely and officially for the crash divided by the total number of drivers involved. 
Figure 1 from the paper presents the SOB by the BAC for both male and female drivers. The solid line is the “All Blame Factors” and the dotted line is for the unambiguous factors- the far better measure2, IMO. These data do make a case that fatal crash risk is an essentially linear function of BAC. Importantly, there is no inflection of the curve at either 0.08 or 0.1 BAC which have been the US legal limits during my driving lifetime. The error bars are 95% confidence intervals and they are using lack of overlap of the 95% CI as their inferential statistic indicating a significant difference (they also include a chi-square statistic for the 0.1 BAC vs sober bin). So far, so good. BAC is linearly correlated with the risk of being the sole and officially blamed driver for a fatal accident. [UPDATE: I didn’t originally catch a bit of a dodge the authors are pulling here. The inferential analyses are conducted on the “all blame factors. Then they state “these patterns hold when one considered all blame factors or unambiguous factors”. This “pattern” language is sometimes used to skip over the fact that the inferential analysis didn’t hold up on the other variable(s). This is a big problem, given my questions about the contamination of the blame issue if the officer knows one driver had been drinking alcohol.]
An interesting side-analysis looked at the problem that BAC is not always measured which could introduce a bias. I’m assuming that the first analysis used only verified negative BAC “sober” drivers but it is hard to find this directly stated. Anyway, they looked at the correlation on a state-by-state basis between the SOB “buzzed”, aka 0.1 BAC and SOB sober (which was 2.09 for the overall dataset), and the percent of unmeasured BACs in the fatal crash listing. The correlation was negative, showing that the lower the proportion of unmeasured BACs in a state, the larger the difference between sober and 0.1% BAC drivers in fatal crash responsibility. So if anything, I guess we have to assume that a lower percentage of blood testing results in an underestimate of the crash risk.
The authors next moved on to take a crack at the question of circumstances. In essence it addressed the question of whether people driving at 0.1% BAC are doing so under risky circumstances. At night, for example.
The third Figure from the paper depicts SOB ratio and the Percent Blamed for a subset of two-car crash pairings in which one driver was sober and the other was at a positive BAC. The beauty here is that nondriver circumstances are as identical as you can get for the sober and intoxicated drivers. The authors performed 16 chi-square tests but a quick multiple-comparisons adjustment to the listed p values shows they still survive as all of them being different, BAC vs sober, for SOB and P measures. Odds of being at fault are 60/40 for 0.1% BAC versus sober and about 80/20 by the time you reach two car crashes in which one driver was at 0.08% BAC. Interestingly this is the analysis that appears to show some categorical difference between BAC of 0.1-0.3% and BAC of 0.6-0.8%. They also did a cute little comparison of paired-crashes where one driver was at 0.08 and the other was 0.5-0.7 BAC. The SOB did not differ (95% CI overlap) in this analysis.
As a final note, a bunch of supplementary analyses were provided to try to rule in or out additional driver (sex, race), vehicle (speed and model year) and circumstantial (raining, time, location) factors. The relationship of SOB with BAC persisted.
Probably my largest question about traffic risks conferred by low levels of alcohol consumption is captured by the report of the relative effect size of the “most common driver factors” in Table 1. The “Driving too fast for conditions or in excess of the posted speed limit” factor is a large contributor to SOB ratio in the 0.1-0.7%BAC drivers as well as one of the larger differences from the sober drivers. This underlines a suspicion that those who are willing to drive after a low amount of alcohol consumed are perhaps innately different from those who are not. They might be somewhat more of a risk taker. Here, we’d really want to get at the population that is willing to drive after a drink or two and look at their driving crash risk when they are sober. Methodologically, this is asking for a lot, I realize.
This is only one study, of course. There may be other data out there that show a less continuous function of fatal crash risk to BAC in this range below the current US legal limit. But this is for sure an important study.
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1authors say that there is no sufficiently detailed database for nonfatal crashes, sady.
2Still trying to wrap my head around whether these “unambiguous” factors are in fact uncontaminated by the police officer’s knowledge that one of the drivers had been drinking. Presumably they write up their reports somewhat after they have investigated. Maybe I’m searching for rigor where none is needed but it still bugs me.
NIH Appoints NIAAA Director, Closes Circle on Merger
October 31, 2013
As you are aware, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has been under the care of an Acting Director for years now as the attempt to merge the NIAAA with NIDA moved along before ultimately being axed by Francis Collins.
A Press Release today announces a new permanent Director has been appointed:
National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., announced today the selection of George F. Koob, Ph.D., as Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Dr. Koob is expected to join the NIH in January 2014.
“With his distinguished reputation and vision, I am confident that George will encourage innovative ideas in the basic neurobiology of addiction, and will be dedicated to bridging the gap between our understanding of alcohol abuse, alcoholism, and addiction and developing new, targeted treatments,” said Collins.
As NIAAA director, Dr. Koob will oversee the institute’s $458 million budget, which primarily funds alcohol-related research in a wide range of scientific areas including genetics, neuroscience, epidemiology, prevention, and treatment. The institute also coordinates and collaborates with other research institutes and federal programs on alcohol-related issues and national, state, and local institutions, organizations, agencies, and programs engaged in alcohol-related work.
Dr. Koob comes to the NIH from The Scripps Research Institute, California Campus, where he is Chairman, Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders, and Director, Alcohol Research Center. He earned his Ph.D. in Behavioral Physiology at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Koob’s early research interests were directed at the neurobiology of emotion, with a focus on the theoretical constructs of reward and stress. His contributions have led to the understanding of the anatomical connections of emotional systems and the neurochemistry of emotional function. Dr. Koob also is one of the world’s authorities on alcohol and drug addiction. He has contributed to the understanding of the neurocircuitry associated with the acute reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse and more recently on the neuroadaptations of these reward circuits associated with the transition to dependence.
A quick search of PubMed pulls up some 650 articles including many reviews staking out his “dark side of addiction” orientation to substance dependence.
His wikipedia page indicates that Dr. Koob is on the ISI Highly Cited list and a quick trip to Web of Knowledge shows an h-index of 123.
I think this selection by the NIH indicates a degree of seriousness in the recent RFAs and Supplements designed to advance the”functional integration” of research on alcohol and other drugs. While Koob has had a very substantial amount of work in alcohol over the past years, he has also maintained programs with psychomotor stimulants and opioids.
So any investigators* who were a little suspicious that this “functional integration” stuff was just to soothe feelings over all the wasted time, money and stress of the attempted merger have to walk that cynicism back a bit. The NIH could have easily appointed a pure alcohol type of researcher, even an alcoholism clinician. But the choice of a pre-clinical scientist who has research feet planted across many different substances of abuse sends the signal that there is meat behind the idea of integration.
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*I’ll raise my hand on that one.
According to a summary of a recent presentation from Francis Collins (NIH Director) to the SMRB on May 29 provided by the Research Society on Alcoholism. Key points:
Collins:
“We are hearing from some of the lobbying organizations that are involved in the use and sale of alcoholic beverages – the wine, beer and liquor industry.
They are not particularly happy about this. We are going to have to see what response comes forward from them. They are very well connected from the political side of this. We are proceeding forward, but I want to give you a heads up that there could be some noise.”
Sol Snyder asked why and Collins had this to say:
“Their view is that alcoholic beverages are an acceptable, social, desirable thing. Consider it to be a food. Noted that it has health benefits. Notion that it will be lumped with drugs of abuse, many of which are illegal, rubs them the wrong way.”
Exactly what I’ve maintained all along. This proposal to merge the NIAAA with NIDA is, scientifically speaking, a no-brainer. It makes a lot of sense and if any ICs are to be merged, this is the first thing on the table. If this can’t be done…there doesn’t seem any point to discussing any other mergers.
However. I’ve also noted that the beverage industry has a HUGE amount of pull in Congress and and HUGE interest in not seeing alcohol defined as a drug like any other. They don’t want to be mentioned in the same sentence with drug cartels! They sure as hell don’t want people discussing, matter-of-factly, that their beloved product is really not substantially different* from cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, save by historical accident.
So this whole proposal could come crashing down if the beverage interests can buy up enough support in Congress to quash this. Personally I think all this comes down to is the extent to which they care. I believe if they throw around enough cash in Washington DC they can halt this.
Question is, will they?
Will they be bought off by some careful wording** and policy statements that preserve the special status of alcohol within the new IC?
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*by some ways of looking at things. First and foremost, addiction.
**Perhaps by keeping the word “Alcohol” in the title of the IC to distinguish it from “Drugs” and even “Substances”?
ps: as always, see Disclaimer. I’m an interested party in this process.
We convered Alcohol research fraudster Michael W. Miller in a prior post. This was following a finding of the ORI of the NIH and a note on retractionwatch. My post focused on the fact that when cheaters like Michael W. Miller are finally caught, there is no way to recover for their sins. No way to reclaim that money. No way for the person who really deserved the job or the award to be compensated.
That pisses me off.
It also pisses me off when people who do dodgy things in science, like Charles Nemeroff, get to keep on keeping on as if nothing happened. Some patsy University will happen along to hire the dude if they think it is in their interest to do so.
Well, I see from a comment at retraction watch that Michael W. Miller plans a full court press to rehabilitate his image. Online anyway.
Welcome to michaelwmiller.net. According to Network Solutions, it was registered by Reputation Changer on Mar 15, 2012.
Registrant:
Reputation Changer LLC
39 West Gay Street
West Chester, Pennsylvania 31410
United StatesRegistered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: MICHAELWMILLER.NET
Created on: 15-Mar-12
Expires on: 15-Mar-13
Last Updated on: 20-Mar-12
The ORI finding of misconduct was published in the Federal Register on Feb 27, 2012. So this fraudster immediately used Reputation Changer to do what they do :
ReputationChanger.com specializes in helping people make their mistakes vanish from the eyes of potential clients and employers. Embarrassing arrests and unseemly articles can be pushed off of the front page of Google searches, where they are unlikely to be viewed by the majority of Google users. Because people tend to only look at the first page of results, Google searches can once again reveal the great things you or your company achieved, rather than the negative reviews overzealous and under impressed individuals have posted. People have an array of motivations for posting negative press, but the important question is not why do they post it– you should be asking yourself how to get rid of it.
How do they do it? By building a fawning self-web-presence that says crapola like:
Michael W. Miller Presents Astounding Findings or perhaps Michael W. Miller Publishes Scientific Gold. This latter conveniently omits to mention the two retracted papers that were, of course, not “Gold” but more like “made up crap”.
As far as I can tell, every link in the site points to somewhere else on the site. I’m sure this is hot stuff in repairing your Google ranks.
Wait, wait…what’s this? I tried to see if his Google presence had been improved and I found another site. michaelwmillerupstate.com was registered….by Reputation Changer …. on Mar 15, 2012. Here’s what I learned about the good Professor Miller’s attitude toward’s research:
But research is not the only component in a successful endeavor. Michael W. Miller understands that documentation—accurate documentation—is pivotal. Without this documentation, research findings could not undergo duplication. All the work that went into a study would prove wasted. This is why Michael W. Miller publishes so many different writings.
It overlooks all the “work” that other people put into trying to replicate Michael W. Miller’s faked (and now retracted) research papers. It seems that “accurate” documentation perhaps is in the eye of the beholder? or just a flagrant lie on the part of the Reputation Changer system for rehabilitating the web image?
As his career moves forward, researcher Michael W. Miller will continue to conduct research. Through his writing, Professor Michael W. Miller will share this research with the world. The result, Michael W. Miller hopes, will manifest as improved medical knowledge and techniques.
Really? He’s going to continue is he? Can’t wait to see what University is willing to hire him.
Okay, what else do you have to offer, Google? OMMFG, ANOTHER ONE!!!! michaelwmillerblog.com was registered….shall we just guess? Yep, by Reputation Changer on Mar 15, 2012.
Wonder how many more of these frigging things are out there?
Ahh, well. Just remember to keep linking to the ORI finding showing that Michael W. Miller faked data. And maybe to the retraction watch blog entry on Michael W. Miller.
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Added: I’m particularly intrigued by the michaelwmillerupstate one. His place of employment when the fraudulent papers were detected was the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. I wonder how they feel about this use of “upstate”?
Repost: "Do you think Uncle Joe has a drinking problem?"
December 31, 2011
Repost from a few years ago:
As we reach the pinnacle of the drinking season (Thanksgiving through New Years) many people not in the business are thinking about addiction. It may be a concerned reflection on our own behavior over the past* coming month or so. It may arise from unusual levels of contact with our distant relations or family friends. Even though drinking, even to excess, is socially approved sometimes one starts to ….wonder.
Thought on Tintin
December 30, 2011
Meaning the new movie. I just saw this with a nonzero number of underage children and I have a few thoughts.
Minor to massive spoiler alert so I’ll use the jumpcode…..
Read the rest of this entry »
Music lyrics poll: Drug Use
August 13, 2011
In a Twittersation today we arrived at the possibility that being a heroin user is a unique lyrical stimulus. The specific assertion is that while a lot of so-called ‘crack rap’ discusses *selling* crack cocaine, there are no lyrics about being a crack *user*.
So let’s broaden the call…can you think of songs that are about using drugs other than heroin? Let’s leave alcohol aside for the moment, there are a bajillion songs about drinking.
NIH Director Collins moves forward with NIAAA/NIDA merger
November 18, 2010
Looks as though the NIH Director has accepted the recommendation of the Scientific Management Review Board (videocast; jump to minute 192 or so) and will move forward on integrating the current National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism into a new National Institute on “substance use, abuse, and addiction research and related public health initiatives”.
At least one person communicating with me about this today has intimated that Collins is in favor of the merger and that this is a done deal. However, a memo that I’ve received, which purports to be one Collins sent to the NIDA staff, doesn’t actually say this. It says, rather, that he wants a more-detailed plan put on his desk for final consideration.
I recognize that such a major organizational change will require a great deal of analysis, coordination, and effort. I also appreciate that this proposal has prompted many questions and concerns among staff and outside stakeholders. We will make certain that this process is carried out thoughtfully, with careful consideration of not only the science, but also of the staff in NIDA and NIAAA, and others at NIH who may be affected by these changes. Consequently, I have asked NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., and National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Director Stephen I. Katz, M.D., Ph.D., to pull together a task force of experts from within NIH to look carefully across all of NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers to determine where substance use, abuse, and addiction research programs currently exist and make recommendations about what programs should be moved into the proposed new Institute. An important component of this effort will be to take a careful look at the intramural programs of NIDA and NIAAA, and consider how best to build on the excellent science represented there. In addition, the task force will survey NIDA and NIAAA for programs that are not related to substance use, abuse, and addiction research and make recommendations about where such programs will go. The task force will also include expertise on organizational change. Final recommendations to the NIH Director will be informed by consultation with relevant internal and external stakeholders…I anticipate that the task force will produce a detailed reorganization plan for my consideration sometime in the summer of 2011.
Director Collins also made the awkward attempt to keep people from panicking.
In the interim, all existing substance use, abuse, and addiction research programs at NIH will continue status quo. It is imperative we keep these important lines of research moving forward with all due speed for the benefit of the nation’s health.
Nice try, anyway.
Now admittedly, I am one that does not understand the panicked reaction which is coming for the most part from the NIAAA direction. Both extramural grant holders and NIAAA program staff have been strikingly more nervous about merger than have people on the NIDA side. I do not understand this. If, as the occasional commenter around here asserts, the therapeutic efforts of NIAAA have put those of NIDA to shame over the past two-three decades then it is the NIDA folks that should be nervous, if you ask me. Also, the constituency on the alcohol side is one hell of a lot less twitchy-less morality nonsense involved, more broad spread acceptance of dependence and abuse as a reality (compared with cannabis, say) and one heck of a lot bigger affected population. Then there is the perception factor (and perhaps that is what all the whining is about) that NIAAA will be the aggrieved party in this merger- it strikes me that this would help to preserve NIAAA jobs / research portfolio over that of NIDA as well.
I am interested in the idea that this merger will be an opportunity to enforce scientific orthodoxy..at least at the start. The task force will be looking to strip anything that smells of substance dependence out of other Institutes and strip anything that is too distant from substance abuse out of NIAAA’s and NIDA’s existing portfolios. So at least from the launch of the new substance abuse Institute (whatever it is to be named) there may be a rather unique demarcation of territory. Of course this will evolve over time to the kind of occasional overlap we see at present…unless additional IC mergers are accomplished with similar enforcement of strict topic boundaries.
This is more of a curiosity than anything. I don’t see any particular landmines ahead, but then I suppose I’m not one who does work in an uncertain grey area of overlap between the current NIDA/NIAAA portfolios and those of another IC.
Now, let us turn to our favorite interest, that of what specific moves we individuals in the extramural research community should be making to maximize the chances of keeping our labs funded. This is mere speculation at this point since everything is still very hazy and out of focus.
I would say first, if you are an alcohol-only researcher this is a good time to start thinking about broadening your appeal. Start looking for Divisions and Branches at NIDA and elsewhere that might be interested in your research. Take a look at the things of interest to you that lean toward the general substance abuse side of the equation and poke through RePORTER to find out if anyone else is funded on the most obviously related topics.
Second, if you are a NIDA-only person, take a look at alcohol, even if you don’t plan to do any specific studies. Whut? Well sure, NIDA is bigger than NIAAA but many of the NIAAA program officers are going to end up in the integrated institute. If you are talking with them down the line and you evince complete ignorance of alcohol research and ignorance of the overlaps vs dissimilarities with your own favorite drug of abuse..well, this will not endear you to them.
Third, training moves. If you are a PI, consider recruiting a postdoc from the other side of the fence in the next year or two. This will give you some expertise and “voice” when you start writing new grants in a couple of years. Similarly if you are a postdoc in a NIDA-focused or NIAAA-focused laboratory, this may be a good time to give the other side some serious consideration for you next training stop.
Fourth, departmental breadth. There are some departments or SuperResearchGroups that perhaps are a little too exclusive to alcohol or not-alcohol at present. This is a great time to get some breadth with your next Assistant Professor hire, is it not?
UPDATE 11/19/10: See additional links in the comments, Collins has a public press release that seems about the same. One thing that I forgot to take up is the fact that this fact-finding process is critical for determining the size of the budget of the new Institute. There is no reason to think it will simply be an addition of NIDA’s and NIAAA’s current slices of the NIH pie. The addiction-related research focused on nicotine/tobacco that is currently in the NCI might represent a considerable portfolio.
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as always, see Disclaimer. I’m an interested party in this process.
Is NIAAA a better steward of NIH grant monies than is NIDA?
October 6, 2010
A Nature News bit [h/t @davidkroll] on the NIAAA/NIDA merger mostly covers the usual ground. It did add two bits of info into the discussion space, however. First, they got a “no comment” response from the beverage industry:
Although the alcohol industry is unlikely to relish its legal product being lumped in for study with street drugs such as cocaine and heroin, it has so far remained silent. US Trade groups including the Beer Institute, the Wine Institute, the American Beverage Institute and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States all declined to comment for this article.
I’m still betting their entire strategy (if they actually care about this, which I suspect they do) is going to be by trying to get a pet Congress Critter or two to oppose the plan. Spirited opposition can probably block the whole plan.
The second tidbit is contained in a graph of the recent success rates for applicants to the two Institutes. This underlines something that NIAAA people have been quietly bragging about for the past several years. They managed to soften the GreatBudgetCrash blow through 2005-2007, maintaining relatively higher success rates when NIDA’s went in the tanker. The two ICs success rates are closer now, albeit NIAAA applicants enjoy a slight advantage. What does this reflect? Hard to tell from this type of data.
Is it better stewardship? That NIAAA Program Staff anticipated the flatlined federal allocation and planned for it better? Important to know as the POs of the two institutes are integrated. Maybe the NIAAA staff deserve a more-equal ranking based on their performance in past years?
Is it a reflection that smaller ICs can respond more nimbly? This would seem to be an important analysis to make given the push to consolidate not just NIAAA/NIDA but to merge additional small institutes in the future.
Is this only a reflection of a smaller, more insular research community that was more responsive to Program Staff’s warnings not to submit so many proposals? Did the NIAAA’s pronounced bias to put a lot of $$$ into BigMech Centers and the like smooth the process somehow?
…just thinking out loud here…
NIAAA-funded researchers need to stop whining and sack the hell up!
September 28, 2010
Someone going by Addiction Scientist dropped this comment on the Sb blog:
Unfortunately, the questionable efforts by Dr. Volkow and her staff to “market” this merger at grantee meetings (“It’s a done deal!”), despite clear directions not to do so, has really created an adversarial relationship between the scientific staff of each Institute. Many of NIAAA’s best scientists are considering leaving NIH rather than work under Volkow. It’s hard to be a creative scientist in a hostile work environment, and people are really angry with Volkow and Leshner (her predecessor at NIDA). An additional insult to NIAAA is that this merger may signal the end of a carefully developed and nurtured alcohol research community that has contributed so much to the welfare of the American people. Alcohol researchers actually have developed useful pharmacotherapeutics, behavioral treatments, technologies, and clinical tools that have actually had impact on people. Aside from a “war on drugs” under ONDCP’s auspices, its hard to quantify NIDA’s contribution, beyond the reward pathway. Even the best endocannabinoid research is supported under NIAAA. So, who will this help and how? Does Volkow really need a larger empire?
Call the waaaahmbulance.
Read my lips, Volkow can not possibly be selected as the head of a new combined Addictions Institute. Not going to happen.
It is going to have to be a person who has feet firmly planted in both alcohol research and other-drugs research.
An additional insult to NIAAA
You need to get over this “insult” business. And I mean the collective you. It is not an insult. Honestly now, if you start with the assumption that Institutes are to be merged, which other ones rise to the top of the list? Seriously.
this merger may signal the end of a carefully developed and nurtured alcohol research community
Why that almost sounds like you think that alcohol research scientists suck and cannot compete on an even footing with those who are currently under the NIDA umbrella. Who’s insulting who now?
From my limited experience serving on a study section that received grants assigned to NIAAA and NIDA my opinion is that there is no competitive disadvantage/advantage for either types of applications that we reviewed. It also happens that I know quite a number of people who have held or do hold awards from both NIAAA and NIDA.
If we think about human populations, sure maybe there is more of a tendency to specialize but c’mon. The co-morbidity issue is huge in alcohol research- so get your grants from NIMH. Also, many human users of other drugs also co-abuse alcohol- perfect opportunity to steal a march on the other-drug-focused investigators.
C’mon NIAAA-funded extramural researchers, sack the heck up!
(if you were referring to intramural researchers in your comment about ‘best scientists’ leaving, well can’t help you there. not a fan of the intramural research program)
Now, getting us back on track with the politics, we still have not heard from powerful lobby interests and their pet CongressCritters. And by “powerful”, I mean not namby pamby patient advocacy groups and the like. I mean the “beverage” industry. Brewers, distillers and vintners, oh my.
My completely unfounded suspicion is that they will be very motivated to keep alcohol from being explicitly defined as a drug like any other, which is how this is going to look.
Blogrolling: Infactorium
May 6, 2010
I’ve been scanning the Infactorium blog penned by AnyEdge a little bit. I am captivated by post such as these.
What it was Like:
I think now about all the energy I put into trying and failing to hide it. What a waste. I remember the bathtub, the soda bottles half full of liquor. The thinking people didn’t notice. All the little games I played to try to conceal how much, how often.
LawnBoy said: “if [ex] shows up, please just restrict yourself to two beers.”
Now, I took minor offense to that, but I understood. Later that year I made an ass of myself at goldlust’s wedding too. I did a lot of that. I could probably write 20 pages about all the asinine things I did at friend’s weddings. I was impressive. I stranded my sister penelope in the Chicago airport, because I was too drunk to go to her aid. Like I say, impressive.
More Grants, with a Discussion of the Constancy of Inadequacy.
I found out about two weeks ago that I’m going to be co-investigator on this huge grant, covering 30% of my time and salary. It’s the same work that I was planning on doing anyway, I just had no idea that it was going to be written up for funding. Silly me. In academic circles, everything is written up for funding.
Medical Doctors don’t have to do shit but memorize and pass a test.
Why are you still here? Go Read.
Does one drug cause the user to be more annoying?
April 14, 2010
As a bit of a followup to the poll we ran on whether or not cigarettes make you high, I offer context and my thoughts. As of this writing, btw, the votes are running 44% “Yes”, 47% “No”, the balance “other” with a fair bit of commentary to the effect that “high” is not exactly the right description for nicotine.
For the background, we might as well start with the comment from SurgPA:
This started with an email from PalMD asking why doctors react much more negatively to narcotics abusers than alcohol or nicotine abusers. I hypothesized that most people view acute use of the various drugs differently. Specifically I suspected that most doctors’ gut reactions when seeing someone light a cigarette are qualitatively (and vastly) different from seeing someone shoot heroin (or snort crushed oxycontin). In short that we don’t see the act of smoking as an acute intoxication by a neuroactive substance, even if we understand it intellectually.
Alcohol and Marijuana Use Epidemiology
December 14, 2009
A recent survey suggested that a majority of US respondents support the legalization of marijuana. The press release version from Angus-Reid Global Monitor is here. I’ve taken the liberty of graphing the data because something strikes me as funny.
It is very odd to me that the public view on drug harms seems to exist in a sort of good/bad binary state that does not appear to be graded with anything resembling a specific measure of “harmfulness” whatever that may be. If we may take the public willingness for legalization as a reflection of some global harm evaluation, that is. Some of the more philosophically defensible arguments, along the line of libertarian civil liberties and what not, would seem to be entirely independent of drug identity, right? So it must be something about the level of harm. The public appear to feel that there is a categorical distinction between marijuana and some other popular drugs but I just don’t see where it is supported in terms of any given harmful outcome including risk of dependence, interference with ability to function when acutely intoxicated, acute risk of death, risk of toxicity to brain or other major organ with repeated use, etc.
Unfortunately, I was distracted by something shiny in my researches so we’re going off on a bit of a tangent today…
"Do you think maybe Uncle Joe has a drinking problem?"
November 24, 2009
As we reach the pinnacle of the drinking season (Thanksgiving through New Years) many people not in the business are thinking about addiction. It may be a concerned reflection on our own behavior over the past* coming month or so. It may arise from unusual levels of contact with our distant relations or family friends. Even though drinking, even to excess, is socially approved sometimes one starts to ….wonder.
DrugMonkey 