Time to politicize Science Research?
By: Alana Sharp, Penn Biomedical Graduate Student
There has perhaps always been a bizarre disconnect between
scientific research, the general public, and politics. The story of
measles is a fitting example. A highly contagious viral infection first
described as early as 68 AD, measles was once “as inevitable as death and
taxes” (Babbott Am J Med Sci 1954). In the 1971, Merck & Co. began
marketing Maurice Hilleman’s combined vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella; today, MMRV is a CDC-recommended vaccination, and measles
is no longer considered endemic in the United States. However, due to the
reverberations of a now-retracted study linking childhood vaccinations with
developmental disorders, an obstinate anti-vaccination movement persists in the
United States. In the past twenty years, enclaves of children
unvaccinated due to parental refusal have permitted sporadic outbreaks of the
disease. Such outbreaks have been thus far contained by surrounding
vaccination-compliant communities; however, the growth of this anti-vaccination
movement bodes ill for the future eradication of measles. In this way,
one of our greatest medical advances has thus been sullied and distorted, to
the detriment of both childhood health and the reputation of the scientific
community.
Another illustration of the divide between science and politics is that of
anthropomorphic climate change. The now renowned assessment by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 predicted significant
changes to global temperatures, weather patterns, sea levels and acidification,
and losses to biodiversity. This report has repeatedly been shown to be
overly conservative, as new data suggest faster Arctic ice melting and
temperature rises, and reveal broader detrimental impacts to ecosystems, food
safety, and political stability. In the realm of American politics, these
warnings are generally unheeded. With the exception of occasional head
nods by Barack Obama and the political left, the impetus to shift toward
renewable energy sources and green infrastructure has been weak and
unsustained. Indeed, a significant contingent of our political system and
mainstream media maintains that global climate change is a hoax, and an untold
network of unreported funding continues to nurture anti-science organizations
and promulgate propaganda and misinformation.
The risks in politicizing science are significant. To the researcher,
they may be personal and severe, as demonstrated by the ‘Climategate’ attacks
of 2009 and the firing of the NWS scientist last month. Some believe that
the politicizing of scientific discovery will tarnish the reputation of
scientists as unbiased purveyors of truth. Furthermore, bringing research
to the general public is a time-consuming pursuit, made worse by an educational
climate in which politicians threaten to ban critical thinking and wherein sensitive
scientific topics are altogether ignored. In contrast, it is much easier
to research tissue engineering without delving into the controversies over
human embryonic stem cell research. It may seem nobler to publish on the
therapeutic benefits of entheogenic compounds without delving into drug policy
reform. The scientist may feel better trained to produce data on climate
change, or to develop cancer treatments, than to contribute a voice to the
politics of carbon taxes and Medicare reform. I argue, however, that this
reluctance by scientists to address the political ramifications of their
research, and confront those that would usurp and pervert it, is at best an act
of self-preservation and at worst an act of cowardice.
This issue will come to a head March 1, when Congress
must cut $85 billion in federal spending. This spending ‘sequestration’
will produce lasting effects to federal funding of scientific research, with
cuts of 5.0-8.2% to funding agencies including the NSF, NIH, FDA, NWS, DOE,
NASA, and more. Superimposed on a largely stagnant funding climate, these
cuts will produce significant changes to research funding. The NSF is
expecting to award fewer new grants, and the NIH will reduce the size of
existing research grants; furthermore, the funding of large projects may be
rejected in favor of safer, incremental proposals. We can expect the
career trajectory of young scientists to suffer and for graduating PhD students
to struggle to find employment. Academic institutions with meager
endowments will suffer, and the United States will continue to drop in
international rankings of education and scientific productivity.
If there was ever a time for the scientific community to speak up, the time is
now. Congress will not make our case for us. The public will not
make our case for us. It is for us to contribute to the dialogue and
remind the country that science is valuable and inextricably linked to American
progress. We must explain that many of our great intellectual steps
forward were initially preliminary projects nurtured by federal grants, most of
which were deemed too risky to fund by private corporations. We must
explain the relationship between the scientist in the lab and treatments for
cancer, diabetes, and heart disease; we must demonstrate the link between the
technologies of our future and the funding that will make them realities; and
we must elucidate the economic, intellectual, medical, political, and security
payoffs of research. In the days to come, we must make our voices heard.
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