The past is prologue: Political NIH interference edition

From a prestigious general science journal:

“Important elements in both Senate and the House are showing increasing dissatisfaction over Congress’s decade-long honeymoon with medical research….critics are dissatisfied…with the NIH’s procedures for supervising the use of money by its research grantees….NIH officials..argued, rather, that the most productive method in financing research is to pick good people with good projects and let them carry out their work without encumbering them…its growth has been phenomenal….[NIH director}: nor do we believe that most scientific groups in the country have an asking and a selling price for their product which is research activity…we get a realistic appraisal of what they need to do the job..the supervisory function properly belongs to the universities and other institutions where the research takes place….closing remarks of the report are:…Congress has been overzealous in appropriating money for health research”.

D.S. Greenberg, Medical Research Funds: NIH Path Through Congress Has Developed Troublesome Bumps, Science 13 Jul 1962, Vol. 137, Issue 3524, pp. 115-119
DOI: 10.1126/science.137.3524.115 [link]
__
Previously posted.

The Trump Administration is gagging science and we are next

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been told to stop funding grants and stop talking about scientific findings. Via Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily halt all contracts, grants and interagency agreements pending a review, according to sources.

The White House sent a letter to the EPA’s Office of Administration and Resources Management ordering the freeze on Monday, an EPA staffer told Reuters. “Basically no money moving anywhere until they can take a look,” the staffer said, asking not to be named.

Via The Verge:

Also, employees have been banned from providing updates to reporters or on social media. The internal memo specifies that no press releases will go out to external audiences, there will be “no blog messages” and media requests will be carefully screened.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been told not to talk about their science. Via Buzzfeed News:

According to an email sent Monday morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the department told staff — including some 2,000 scientists — at the agency’s main in-house research arm, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to stop communicating with the public about taxpayer-funded work.

“Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents,” Sharon Drumm, chief of staff for ARS, wrote in a department-wide email shared with BuzzFeed News.

“This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” she added.

I’m sure I do not need to lead you by the hand to realize that this is a political putsch directed against scientific entities that tend to relate data that is discordant with Republican worldviews and preferred policies.

This is just the beginning. Each successful gag/intimidation will just fuel the next one.

NIH and NSF, dear to many in my audience, are most assuredly next, people. I hope not too many of you are counting on grant awards that are due to be issued in the next, oh, six months or so. Especially if you work on scientific questions that the Republicans have attacked before. Such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, mental health, LGBT issues, anything to do with family structure or dynamics, much of psychology and sociology, etc. And lord help you if you work with obviously ridiculous models such as fruit flies or obviously ridiculous therapies, like exercise.

__
Additional:
How would you like some posturing Congress Critter to de-fund your grant?

Logothetis driven out of monkey research

Neuroscientist Nikos Logothetis (PubMed) has informed his colleagues that he is stopping his long running nonhuman primate research program. An article in ScienceInsider by Gretchen Vogel details the issues:

Nikos Logothetis, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, says he will conclude his current experiments on macaques “as quickly as possible” and then shift his research to rodent neural networks. In a letter last week to fellow primate researchers, Logothetis cites a lack of support from colleagues and the wider scientific community as key factors in his decision.

This is not the “start” as was alleged by a Twitter person today. This is a long running trend that has been going on for decades. Productive laboratories that use nonhuman primates have been closing one by one. The decision by Harvard to shutter the New England National Primate Research Center was shocking in the way it violated the trend for picking off research labs one by one, but it was otherwise simply part of a larger trend.

And why are Universities and Research Institutes like Max Planck divesting themselves of monkey labs as quickly as possible? The Vogel article suggests an answer.

Logothetis’s research on the neural mechanisms of perception and object recognition has used rhesus macaques with electrode probes implanted in their brains. The work was the subject of a broadcast on German national television in September that showed footage filmed by an undercover animal rights activist working at the institute. The video purported to show animals being mistreated.

Logothetis has said the footage is inaccurate, presenting a rare emergency situation following surgery as typical and showing stress behaviors deliberately prompted by the undercover caregiver. … The broadcast triggered protests, however, and it prompted several investigations of animal care practices at the institute. Investigations by the Max Planck Society and animal protection authorities in the state of Baden-Württemberg found no serious violations of animal care rules.

Emphasis added. This is a typical scenario. In essence, animal rights terrorist fanatics are able to get Universities and Research Institutions to turn their backs on productive researchers simply because they don’t want to deal with the headaches any longer. Or because they fear bad press. The accusations are almost always falsified. Baseless. But it doesn’t matter. The Universities are running in absolute terror of the fanatics.

Of course it goes beyond that, which is why Logothetis called out his fellow scientists.

The [Max Planck] society is “one of the best scientific organizations worldwide,” Logothetis wrote, but it has failed to take concrete steps against the activists. “I am no longer willing or able to accept the never-ending stream of abuse from animal activists toward myself and my co-workers while seeing them encouraged to increase their aggressive activities by the tolerance and very slow reactions of scientific organizations. There is a clear lack of consequences for illegal actions such as infiltration, violation of privacy, theft of documents, and even intentionally caused distress to animals in order to film supposed animal torture or abnormal behavior,” the letter states.

Logothetis’s letter also faults his scientific colleagues in Tübingen for distancing themselves from the controversy. The neighboring Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology posted a disclaimer on its website emphasizing that there are no monkeys at the institute, he notes, and colleagues at the nearby Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research refused to issue a declaration of support.

Pastor Niemöller once observed:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are certainly parallels. Biological scientists express a range of attitudes about many things and the use of animals in research is one of them. From fears of coming under assault themselves if they speak up, to discomfort with making an informed decision about the allegations against Professor Logothetis to frank antipathy to research in monkeys, we span the same range as many lay people.

We are easily able to delude ourselves that if we just let the most-detested targets of the terrorists get thrown under the bus, we can live our own lives in relative safety for another few years. Maybe run out the clock on our career before things get too bad.

Money is tight, after all, and gee, well lets not do anything to rile up the nice little old ladies who are poised to donate a few million to the University, eh? Let’s not do anything to draw the attention of animal right’s Congress Critters. That might make things awkward for the NIH.

Normally this is the point of my post where I exhort you to fight. To stand up and oppose this assault on scientific research. Where I point out to you that after the monkeys (and cats and dogs) comes the goats and the rabbits from which you get your antibodies. Where I tell you that all this pressure is doing is to move certain kinds of research to non-Western countries in which the animal research protections are, at best, at the lever of the US in 1950.

This is the point where I am supposed to be telling you to call your Congress Critter.

But I can’t.

Logothetis is not the first and he will not be the last.

We have had ample opportunity for biological scientists to see and be motivated to do something about this situation.

They have not done so.

So I would be wasting my breath.

I really need to start one of these citation cartels….

From Odyssey:

It’s become apparent to me that there is a group of reviewers who all display the same phenotype when it comes to their reviews. They all i) are quick to agree to review manuscripts in our common sub-sub-field, ii) submit their reviews on time, and iii) will recommend acceptance or minor revisions for all manuscripts. All.

 

On time? Suspicious that.

Did I mention that this bloc of reviewers are all strongly linked to one particular well-known member of our sub-sub-field? Former trainees, co-authors etc.

 

siiigh.

 

 

 

NIH’s rapid growth has let in a bunch of riff-raff!

I am sure Dr. McKnight realizes that when he asserts that “Biomedical research in the 1960s and 1970s was a spartan game” and “Biomedical research is a huge enterprise now; it attracts riff-raff who never would have survived as scientists in the 1960s and 1970s” he is in fact lauding the very scientists “When I joined the molecular cytology study section in the 1980s.. all kinds of superb scientists” who were the riff-raff the prior generation complained about.

From a very prestigious general Science journal in 1962:

Some of [this change] arises from expressions of concern within the scientific community itself over whether the NIH’s rapid growth has sacrificed quality to achieve quantity.

The astute reader will also pick up on another familiar theme we are currently discussing.

And some of it reflects nothing more than the know-nothing ramblings of scientific illiterates, who conclude that if the title of a research project is not readily comprehensible to them, some effort to swindle the government must be involved.

1962, people. 1962.
__
Greenberg DS. NIH Grants: Policies Revised, but Critics Not Likely To Turn Away. Science. 1962 Dec 28;138(3548):1379-80.

Congress is dissatisfied with NIH’s spending priorities!

This passage appeared in a highly prestigious journal of science.

“Important elements in both Senate and the House are showing increasing dissatisfaction over Congress’s decade-long honeymoon with medical research….critics are dissatisfied…with the NIH’s procedures for supervising the use of money by its research grantees….NIH officials..argued, rather, that the most productive method in financing research is to pick good people with good projects and let them carry out their work without encumbering them…its growth has been phenomenal….[NIH director}: nor do we believe that most scientific groups in the country have an asking and a selling price for their product which is research activity…we get a realistic appraisal of what they need to do the job..the supervisory function properly belongs to the universities and other institutions where the research takes place….closing remarks of the report are:…Congress has been overzealous in appropriating money for health research”.

Thought on the public funding of science

Simple truth of the recentEbola hysteria and the ensuing media coverage of scientists working on hemorrhagic viruses. Approximately 85% of bioscience now wishing ill on a whole lot of people so as to draw attention to their scientific domain.

Medical marijuana "researcher" fired by U of A

From the LA Times:

The University of Arizona has abruptly fired a prominent marijuana researcher who only months ago received rare approval from federal drug officials to study the effects of pot on patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

The firing of Suzanne A. Sisley, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, puts her research in jeopardy and has sparked indignation from medical marijuana advocates.

I bet. Interestingly I see no evidence on PubMed that this Sisley person has any expertise in conducting research at all. I’m not saying I need exhaustive credentials but I’d like to see a published study or two.

Cue the usual raving about how this is all a vast right wing conspiracy to keep down miraculous medication…

Sisley charges she was fired after her research – and her personal political crusading – created unwanted attention for the university from legislative Republicans who control its purse strings.

“This is a clear political retaliation for the advocacy and education I have been providing the public and lawmakers,” Sisley said. “I pulled all my evaluations and this is not about my job performance.”

Well, this IS Arizona we’re talking about. I’m going to want to see more* but I guess I am going to have to score myself as sympathetic to the notion that this was a political squelching.
Still, the University is denying the charge…

University officials declined to explain why Sisley’s contract was not renewed, but objected to her characterization.

“The university has received no political pressure to terminate any employee,” said Chris Sigurdson, a university spokesman. He said the university embraces research of medical marijuana, noting that it supported a legislative measure in 2013 permitting such studies to be done on state campuses.

Ok, “embraces”, eh? We’ll see if that turns out to be true.

__
h/t: clbs

*if this holds true to form the University will be compelled to make a case for how she wasn’t competent at the “clinical assistant professor” category of association with U of A.

UCLA scientists have been under attack for over a decade

A new post at Speaking for Research details the history:

Back in 2003, Neurobiology Professors John and Madeleine Schlag saw their property vandalized at a home demonstration. “The way it proceeded … we felt that the door was going to be kicked in,” they commented in an interview.

In 2006, Professor Lynn Fairbanks was targeted with an incendiary device. It turned out animal extremists got the wrong address and planted the firebomb at the doorstep of an elderly neighbor.

In June 2007 another firebomb was placed under the vehicle of Professor Arthur Rosenbaum, who dedicated his life to pediatric ophthalmology by helping children with strabismus. His wife later received a threatening note which told her to persuade her husband to stop his research or “…we will do exactly what he does to monkeys to you.”

In 2007, Professor Edythe London finds her home flooded by animal rights extremists, and received the threat, “water was our second choice, fire was our first.”  She decided to reply by explaining, in a thoughtful OpEd in the LA Times, the reasons for her work.

In 2008, the UCLA community saw once again an incendiary device char the front door of a home owned by a Professor, the vandalism of three vehicles parked outside the home of a postdoctoral student, and the firebombing of a university commuter van.

Then, in 2009, the car of Professor David Jentsch, parked in his driveway, is set on fire while he was sleeping at home.  He subsequently received a letter containing razor blades and a threatening note that fantasized about sneaking up behind him and cutting his throat

The harassment of UCLA scientists in their homes has continued on a monthly basis every since. This year, the scientists have decided to organize counter protests.

The next counterdemonstration will be February 15, 2014. If you are local these scientists would appreciate your support.

 

Please join us to defend UCLA, our science, and the hope for medical advances and new cures.

When: February 15, 10:15am sharp!
Where: NE Corner of Westwood and LeConte

Join us to end the decade-long age of terror at UCLA!

Dolphins ain't all that either.

There’s a great review of a new book (Are Dolphins Really Smart?,  by Justin Gregg) penned by Jessa Gamble at LWON. Go read because it is incredibly important to realize:

A disproportionate amount of dolphin research time has been devoted to teasing out any potential for language – the science-fictional myth of dolphinese – from their vocalizations. If dolphins had language, we would almost certainly have found it by now. When their vocalizations turned out to be rote and inflexible, “I’m scared!” “I’m mating!” “I see food!” pretty much covers it, the research turned to echolocation clicks. Perhaps dolphins were sending each other 3D holographic messages encoded in their clicks. Nope.

and

[waccaloon terrorist AR org]’s lawsuit against SeaWorld challenges dolphin captivity under anti-slavery legislation, citing exceptional intelligence as evidence of their “non-human personhood.” When advocacy for the ethical treatment of animals is based on exaggerated claims of their intelligence, it fails to recognize the inherent worth of animals regardless of their similarity to humans. And in dolphins, that similarity is easily refuted. It’s time relieve the dolphins of all our human baggage and realize that evolution has produced all kinds of intelligence, and it’s all around us.

Gamble notes that the book by Gregg systematically dismantles many popular myths about dolphins and, of course, points out that dolphins are total dicks

Adult male dolphins routinely kill porpoises, not for food — or even out of competition for food – but because the porpoise is similar in size to a dolphin calf. The killings serve as practice for their regular infanticidal behaviour, a sure way to ready mothers for mating.

Sounds like a good read.

 

__

Additional:

Repost: Insightful Animal Behavior: A “Sufficiently Advanced Technology”

Jane Goodall, Plagiarist

 

Why aren't they citing my papers?

As the Impact Factor discussion has been percolating along (Stephen Curry, Björn Brembs, YHN) it has touched briefly on the core valuation of a scientific paper: Citations!

Coincidentally, a couple of twitter remarks today also reinforced the idea that what we are all really after is other people who cite our work.
Dr24hrs:

More people should cite my papers.

I totally agree. More people should cite my papers. Often.

AmasianV:

was a bit discouraged when a few papers were pub’ed recently that conceivably could have cited mine

Yep. I’ve had that feeling on occasion and it stings. Especially early in the career when you have relatively few publications to your name, it can feel like you haven’t really arrived yet until people are citing your work.

Before we get too far into this discussion, let us all pause and remember that all of the specifics of citation numbers, citation speed and citation practices are going to be very subfield dependent. Sometimes our best discussions are enhanced by dissecting these differences but let’s try not to act like nobody recognizes this, even though I’m going to do so for the balance of the post….

So, why might you not be getting cited and what can you do about it? (in no particular order)

1) Time. I dealt with this in a prior post on gaming the impact factor by having a lengthy pre-publication queue. The fact of the matter is that it takes a long time for a study that is primarily motivated by your paper to reach publication. As in, several years of time. So be patient.

2) Time (b). As pointed out by Odyssey, sometimes a paper that just appeared reached final draft status 1, 2 or more years ago and the authors have been fighting the publication process ever since. Sure, occasionally they’ll slip in a few new references when revising for yet the umpteenth time but this is limited.

3) Your paper doesn’t hit the sweet spot. Speaking for myself, my citation practices lean this way for any given point I’m trying to make. The first, best and most recent. Rationale’s vary and I would assume most of us can agree that the best, most comprehensive, most elegant and all around most scientifically awesome study is the primary citation. Opinions might vary on primacy but there is a profound sub-current that we must respect the first person to publish something. The most-recent is a nebulous concept because it is a moving target and might have little to do with scientific quality. But all else equal, the more recent citations should give the reader access to the front of the citation thread for the whole body of work. These three concerns are not etched in stone but they inform my citation practices substantially.

4) Journal identity. I don’t need to belabor this but suffice it to say some people cite based on the journal identity. This includes Impact Factor, citing papers on the journal to which one is submitting, citing journals thought important to the field, etc. If you didn’t happen to publish there but someone else did, you might be passed over.

5) Your paper actually sucks. Look, if you continually fail to get cited when you think you should have been mentioned, maybe your paper(s) just sucks. It is worth considering this. Not to contribute to Imposter Syndrome but if the field is telling you to up your game…up your game.

6) The other authors think your paper sucks (but it doesn’t). Water off a duck’s back, my friends. We all have our opinions about what makes for a good paper. What is interesting and what is not. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. Keep publishing.

7) Nobody knows you, your lab, etc. I know I talk about how anyone can find any paper in PubMed but we all need to remember this is a social business. Scientists cite people they know well, people they’ve just been chatting with at a poster session and people who have just visited for Departmental seminar. Your work is going to be cited more by people for whom you/it/your lab are most salient. Obviously, you can do something about this factor…get more visible!

8) Shenanigans (a): Sometimes the findings in your paper are, shall we say, inconvenient to the story the authors wish to tell about their data. Either they find it hard to fit it in (even though it is obvious to you) or they realize it compromises the story they wish to advance. Obviously this spans the spectrum from essentially benign to active misrepresentation. Can you really tell which it is? Worth getting angsty about? Rarely…..

9) Shenanigans (b): Sometimes people are motivated to screw you or your lab in some way. They may feel in competition with you and, nothing personal but they don’t want to extend any more credit to you than they have to. It happens, it is real. If you cite someone, then the person reading your paper might cite them. If you don’t, hey, maybe that person will miss it. Over time, this all contributes to reputation. Other times, you may be on the butt end of disagreements that took place years before. Maybe two people trained in a lab together 30 years ago and still hate each other. Maybe someone scooped someone back in the 80s. Maybe they perceived that a recent paper from your laboratory should have cited them and this is payback time.

10) Nobody knows you, your lab, etc II, electric boogaloo. Cite your own papers. Liberally. The natural way papers come to the attention of the right people is by pulling the threads. Read one paper and then collect all the cited works of interest. Read them and collect the works cited in that paper. Repeat. This is the essence of graduate school if you ask me. And it is a staple behavior of any decent scientist. You pull the threads. So consequently, you need to include all the thread-ends in as many of your own papers as possible. If you don’t, why should anyone else? Who else is most motivated to cite your work? Who is most likely to be working on related studies? And if you can’t find a place for a citation….

Date these comments!

from a prestigious general science journal:

“Important elements in both Senate and the House are showing increasing dissatisfaction over Congress’s decade-long honeymoon with medical research….critics are dissatisfied…with the NIH’s procedures for supervising the use of money by its research grantees….NIH officials..argued, rather, that the most productive method in financing research is to pick good people with good projects and let them carry out their work without encumbering them…its growth has been phenomenal….[NIH director}: nor do we believe that most scientific groups in the country have an asking and a selling price for their product which is research activity…we get a realistic appraisal of what they need to do the job..the supervisory function properly belongs to the universities and other institutions where the research takes place….closing remarks of the report are:…Congress has been overzealous in appropriating money for health research”.

Okay, people, ballpark the date this was published!

Congress moves to control synthetic cannabimimetic (K2/Spice) and designer cathinone (mephedrone/MDPV) drugs

HR 1254 (pdf) has passed the House.

This Act would criminalize possession of a range of compounds which activate the endogenous cannabinoid CB1 receptor. The language covers several structural classes as well as an extended list of, e.g. the JWH-xxx compounds. In essence this is another attempt on the analog front in which the DEA is not able to move quickly enough on specific new drugs that emerge within a general neuropharmacological class.

The bill also doubles the amount of time the DEA has to generate the support for a final rule, once an emergency action has been invoked.

The House Resolution next addresses 17 compounds in the likely stimulant/empathogen class, with most of them being cathinone derivatives. Readers of this blog will be familiar with the well known 4-methylmethcathinone (mephedrone) and 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) on this list.

One assumes that Chuck Schumer will be leading the charge on this in the Senate and that it will pass in short order…opposition to this sort of legislation is not usually robust among elected politicians.

Remember James Sherley?

Remember the case of James Sherley? Tenure denial fight featuring all kinds of unpleasantness. Claims that his program was crippled by lack of space and other resources. Hints of politico-religious stuff involving the stem cell field he worked in?

Well juniorprof noticed something interesting about the recent lawsuit against the Obama administration’s stance on stem cells.

Starting A New Biomedical Research Lab

An important side point needs to be made in light of the discussion here. Unless you are plugged in to the swinging-dick Hughes pipeline (or the equivalent) and have access to swinging-dick Hughes lab rejects (or the equivalent), when you first start your own lab, you have no choice but to get yourself off the ground with less talented post-docs, frequently with abysmal oral and written English. Of course, one of your most difficult and important tasks as a new PI is to enable these people–despite their limitations–to fulfill all of their potential and succeed at publishing good papers.
Only after you have established yourself with published papers and awarded grants, do the more talented, more ambitious post-docs have any interest in joining your lab.