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NEWS and COMMENT

Washington Perspective

Science’s money droughtThe$11 billion the Federal Government is spending onbasic research this year probably strikes distant observers asadequate for this country to hold a productive place on thefrontiers of discovery. These funds, double the amount of adecade ago, are supplemented by$3-4 billion from state,industrial, and philanthropic sources. The combined

spending far exceeds that of any other nation. But satiety isas much a matter of expectations as it is of objectivemeasurement.

Amid these large numbers, a sense of neglect festersamong American researchers. Under the title The FundingCrisis, an editorial in the June 29 Science states, "A visit tolaboratories across the land will expose the traveler to cries ofalarm in regard to the scarcity of research funds". The crisismentality is indeed present, and as it spreads, thebrotherhood of science and its political allies are manifestingan erosion of grace in addressing money matters. Thetolerant neighbourliness that has long prevailed within thecommunity must now compete with predatory designsarising from perceptions of a zero-sum economy.The mood is reflected in recent Congressional

manoeuvering over "earmarked funds", or "pork-barrelappropriations", for constructing university laboratories.The terms refer to the process whereby legislators insert afew million dollars into an appropriation bill for the benefitof a hometown institution. The deeds are often performed atthe last legislative minute and with little notice in the

hurly-burly of Capitol Hill. A venerable practice inAmerican politics, pork-barreling is historically associatedwith roads, dams, post offices, and veterans’ hospitals.Science became of interest about 20 years ago, when theWhite House concluded that the Sputnik-inspired build-upof university research facilities had gone far enough. Federalagencies were directed to confine their support to research inexisting buildings.The change was least onerous for the leading beneficiaries

of the building boom, universities traditionally strong inresearch. Alert to the opportunities of the federal buildingprogramme, and attractive to its managers, theseuniversities feasted and added to their strength. But forinstitutional late arrivals to the prestige and glory of science,the end of the federal construction era was a blow. Lackingmodem, well-equipped laboratories, they were at a

disadvantage in seeking competitively awarded researchfunds. When they sought funds for construction, they foundnone available. For decades, a little-changing list of 50universities has annually received the lion’s share of

government funds for academic research.And so, pork-barrel science was born, with nanny services

for needy universities supplied by Washington lobbyists,

appreciative of a new line of business. Not unusual for theseservices are fees of$20 000 per month. In return, thelobbyists’ hauls have been awesome, throughout a decade inwhich, officially, there have been no federal programmes forconstructing university laboratories. Never mind. Since1980, by one accounting, some$900 million, spread over 300projects, has been earmarked for specific institutions-almost always from funds originally intended for research inexisting university laboratories.

For several federal research agencies, the earmark blade isa fact of bureaucratic life. Last year, it took 15 % of the$490million university research budget of the Department ofEnergy and 17% of the Department of Agriculture’s$337million. Over the decade, the money has flowed across theacademic landscape, with awards ranging from$34 millionin Agriculture funds for the Human Nutrition HealthCenter at Tufts University to$20 million from the

Department of Energy for the Center for Advanced

Technology Development at Iowa State University-withhundreds of smaller items in between.

The pork-barrel forays have brought denunciations fromthe National Academy of Sciences, the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science, theAssociation of American Universities, and other suchorganisations. In unison, they contend that earmarkingsubstitutes political for scientific judgment in the use ofscarce research funds-a proposition disputed by thehave-nots as narrow and self-serving. Attempts to persuadeCongress to forgo the political profits of earmarking haveoccasionally achieved limited tactical success tied to

particular circumstances. But wholesale renunciation is notwelcome on Capitol Hill, as was evident recently in anattempt to adopt a Senate rule that, in effect, would banishthe academic pork barrel.The main proponent was Senator John Danforth, a

Missouri Republican whose brother is chancellor of

Washington University, which does well in obtainingfederal funds the orthodox way. Senator Danforth was

seeking a rule that would uphold an objection to anyearmarked item unless overridden by a daunting three-fifthsvote. The change was needed, he said, to assure efficient useof research funds-best achieved, the senator explained,through reliance on the scientific peer-review system.However, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, to whomhe was required to address this argument, is SenatorWendell H. Ford, a Democrat from Kentucky, a state thatranks low in receipt of federal research funds. ChairmanFord responded that peer review is "a good-old-boy"system under which "emerging universities with greatqualities are being excluded". As he left the hearing, SenatorDanforth remarked, "I don’t think I made any sales today".

Although a few legislators take the high road on theearmark issue, the dominant mood is to get what you can forthe folks back home, who, after all, sent you to Washington

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to do just that. This spirit can be seen in an episode involvingthe$8 billion superconducting super collider (SSC) atomsmasher, a heartfelt goal of the Bush administration. Ahurdle to start-up money for next year is a Housesubcommittee chaired by Rep Tom Bevill, Democrat ofAlabama. Rep Bevill’s subcommittee, on which he isdominant by virtue of his chairmanship, approved therequested$169 million construction downpayment.However, with the money came a statement noting that theCommittee "has been impressed by the comprehensivehigh-energy physics program at the University of Alabama’’-Rep Bevill’s alma mater. The report added, "TheCommittee urges the Department of Energy and the TexasNational Research Laboratory Commission to expand theirSSC program at the University". It would be extraordinaryif this suggestion were ignored.

In some circumstances, it is perilous to compete tooeffectively for the Government’s science resources. Thatseems to have been the case with the flamboyantly successfulhead of science education at the National Science

Foundation, Dr Bassam Shakhashiri, a zealot for scienceeducation and a showman on its behalf. His annualChristmas-season science demonstration, at the NationalAcademy of Sciences, regularly drew audiences ofinfluential science-policymakers and their families.Bedecked with a button stating "Science Is Fun!"Shakhashiri lobbied so effectively that Congress regularlyrestrained NSF’s research accounts to enrich long-neglected programmes for training science teachers,equipping school laboratories, and so forth. WhenShakhashiri arrived at NSF in 1984, the education budgetstood at$55 million, with most of that consigned to graduatefellowships. It has since risen to$210 million, mostly forschool-level and undergraduate science programmes,wastelands in American education. At the end of May,Shakhashiri was removed from the education post in a

swan-song act by his departing chief, NSF Director ErichBloch. Shakhashiri says the Director told him he had beenthere too long. One of Shakhashiri’s Congressional allies,Rep George Brown (Democrat, Calif), offered a differentinterpretation: Shakhashiri had undone himself "by beingtoo effective". Bloch said science education needed new

leadership.

Finally, the recent House debate on the budget forNASA-which has soared from$8-8 billion in 1988 to$14-3billion proposed for next year. The space establishmentdeems this skimpy rations, but among politicians with otherfavourites it is regarded as too much. Rep Silvio 0. Conte,of Massachusetts, the senior Republican on the

Appropriations Committee, long ago embraced theNational Institutes of Health as his legislative charge.Noting the growth of NASA, Rep Conte declared, "Boy,would I love to have this increase for the National Institutesof Health for research on cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.I think it is more important to find a cure for AIDS than it isto fund the space programs".

Declaring his support for an amendment to eliminate$6million from NASA’s search for extra-terrestial life (SETI),Rep Conte said "SETI is quite simply an effort to locatespace aliens". He added: "Mr Chairman, at a time whengood people of America can’t find affordable housing, weshouldn’t be spending precious dollars to look for little greenmen with misshapen heads".

Daniel S. Greenberg

Round the World

USA: Women’s health, women’s rightsWomen’s rights in biomedical research have become anissue in Congress. Representative Olympia Snowe, for one,is working on legislation to establish a Government officethat would end the practice of excluding women from someclinical trials and other studies. As matters stand, she says,women are "a medical afterthought, a gender-based asteriskin the health research field".

Although Mrs Snowe perhaps exaggerates for effect, aninvestigation in the House of Representatives confirms thata bias towards males is common in biomedical research. Thehead of the inquiry, Henry Waxman of California, hasfocused on cancer, heart disease, and preventive medicineprogrammes at the National Institutes of Health. "Men", hesays, "have been the primary research subjects for studies ofdiseases, studies of diagnostics and studies of treatment andcure".

Officials at the NIH itself acknowledged a bias in favourof men as far back as 1986. Henceforth, NIH said then, grantapplications should include women in their studypopulations or explain why they did not. An investigativearm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, has foundthat this policy over the years "has not been wellcommunicated or understood within NIH or in the research

community".At a hearing of Mr Waxman’s subcommittee last month

Mark Nagel, a GAO official, produced a booklet, PHSForm 398, as proof of the anti-female bias. The booklet,which NIH grant applicants use, makes no mention of theNIH policy regarding women. A review of 50 recentapplications showed that 20% supplied no information ongender, one-third said the subjects included both sexes butdid not give proportions, and some all-male studies

provided no rationale for their exclusivity.

As GAO sees it, the consequences of this bias are thatfindings of important studies can be needlessly inconclusive.The conclusion that healthy men might reduce their risk of aheart attack by taking an aspirin every other day cannot beapplied for sure to women since only men were studied.Diseases that affect women only can receive too littleattention. Patricia Schroeder, a representative from

Colorado, says that breast cancer is now diagnosed in 1 inevery 9 American women, compared with 1 in 20 in 1961."Yet we currently spend only$17 million a year for basicbreast cancer research", she says.The reasons most often cited for excluding women, Mrs

Schroeder says, include cost, concern about added risk if awoman becomes pregnant, and an unwillingness to takeaccount of hormonal differences. "To this", she says, "Iwould add the dearth of women in senior positions at NIHresearch programs in universities and on peer reviewcommittees". What she and others in Congress want is not afemale quota system but medical research that is relevant towomen’s health as well as men’s.

Says Mrs Schroeder: "There may be no differencebetween how men and women respond to a particulartreatment, but we need to know that it is true, not justassume that it is".

J. B. Sibbison