naturalnews--2019-04-11--Medical police state cuts off research funding from scientist who found that vaccines cause autism

(Natural News) When it comes to the Religion of Vaccination, there’s one area of research that’s completely off-limits, and it encompasses looking into vaccine safety and effectiveness independently, and with an open mind. The reason for this, of course, is that every time a scientist dares to do this, he or she typically discovers that vaccines aren’t nearly as safe or effective as the medical police state claims – which instantly makes said scientist a target of the medical establishment, which has no qualms about doing almost anything in order to silence the truth.  One recent and prominent example of this type of medical tyranny involves Professor Chris Exley of Keele University in the United Kingdom, whose focused research into aluminum toxicity led him to conclude that childhood vaccines, many of which contain neurotoxic aluminum, can, in fact, cause autism – a discovery that, if you’ve been following independent vaccine science for any considerable period of time, is inherently “controversial” and a recipe for trouble.  Like Dr. Andrew Wakefield before him, Prof. Exley merely reported his findings in the interest of public health, as any good scientist would do. And in the process, he’s made himself enemy number one of the Vaccine Mafia, which is now trying to destroy his career and life by barring him from raising any further funding for his research endeavors.  In essence, Prof. Exley has officially blown the lid off the highly-destructive nature of aluminum in vaccines, indicating that this common chemical adjuvant has the potential to cause “severe and disabling” autism in children who are injected with it. And for violating the medical establishment’s never-to-be-challenged doctrine of “all vaccines are safe and effective,” Prof. Exley is now having to endure the ire of the priests and priestesses of the Cult of Vaccination, which are now out for blood.  The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site.  For more vaccine-related news, be sure to check out Vaccines.news.  Prof. Exley was one of the underwriters for an eye-opening 2017 study published in EBioMedicine, a journal associated with The Lancet, which found that underarm cosmetic products – mainly antiperspirant deodorants that contain aluminum – increase users’ risk of developing breast cancer.  He’s also studied other areas of aluminum toxicity similarly unrelated to vaccines – though vaccines eventually became a natural next-step for his particular area of focus. And rather than censor the progressive course of his research endeavors, Prof. Exley stuck true to science – and for doing this, he’s now paying a big price.  The good news, though, is that many people are on Prof. Exley’s side, and are working hard to get him funding from other sources. Some of his most ardently faithful followers have actually set up a GoFundMe page to help raise financial support for his continued research endeavors.  In light of the medical establishment’s continued betrayal of not only his work but also science at large, it’s up to everyday folks who care about truth to step up to the plate to make sure that parents know the truth – and more importantly, to ensure that as many children as possible are protected against toxic injections that could cause them lifelong harm.  “We’ve seen this drama unfold many times,” comments Age of Autism about this latest saga.  “A well respected doctor or researcher begins to ask questions about vaccine safety as a result of the science he or she conducts, and his career is adversely affected … [Prof. Exley’s] funding is dwindling and he needs our help.”  Also, be sure to check out the book How to End the Autism Epidemic by J.B. Handley.


naturalnews--2019-08-23--Medical research breakthrough Scientists can now measure microscopic vibrations to identify protein

Medical research breakthrough: Scientists can now measure microscopic vibrations to identify proteins, similar to "fingerprinting"

(Natural News) Fingerprints have been used for many years to identify individuals based on the unique makeup of their fingerprints. But there are actually unique identifiers that exist in nature as well, and amazingly, there is a certain type of “fingerprint” that is so small, it can only be detected by specialized instruments. A new study reveals that proteins in every living organism vibrate with microscopic motions, and that understanding the patterns created by these motions may help “develop new biotechnology for medicine, energy harvesting and even electronics.”  Researchers from the University at Buffalo developed a new technique that could measure protein vibrations. This new discovery opens up new opportunities in biological research. For instance, it allows scientists to study minute motions of proteins and use it to identify specific proteins present in a given sample. Moreover, scientists could use the new method to check if medicines designed to inhibit the activity or vibration of certain proteins are working. This would mean studying the vibrational patterns of proteins prior to and after the treatment with inhibitors.  “Proteins are elegant and robust nanomachines that nature has developed,” said Andrea Markelz, the team lead and co-author of the study. “We know nature uses molecular motions to optimize these machines. By learning the underlying principles of this optimization, we can develop new biotechnology for medicine, energy harvesting and even electronics.”  Vibrations allow proteins to rapidly modify their shape into something else so they can readily bind to other proteins. This process is essential to proper biological function.  Support our mission and protect your health: Organic Seeds of Life combines Red Raspberry Seed Power, Black Cumin Seed Power and Red Grape Seed Powder into the most potent nutrient-rich supplemental superfood powder you've ever experienced. Loaded with flavonoids, antioxidants, anthocyanins, OPCs, ALA and a vast array of vital nutrients. Learn more here.  A few years back, Markelz developed a method called anisotropic terahertz microscopy (ATM), which allowed researchers to look at protein vibration in great detail. It also allowed scientists to observe the movements of a protein and how much energy it had. Using this technique, researchers directed terahertz light on a molecule, then quantified the light frequencies that the molecule absorbed. This information allowed researchers to better understand the movement of molecules as they vibrated with the similar frequencies as the light they absorbed.  In the new research published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers modified ATM so that it could surpass its limitation — the need to rotate and re-center protein samples multiple times in order to collect enough information. The new ATM eliminates that process. “Instead of rotating the protein sample, we rotate the polarization of the light we shine on the sample,” Markelz explained. The modification in the ATM allows scientists to study protein cells at a much faster rate. Moreover, it helps scientists collect information about the samples that were not possible using the old ATM.  The researchers looked at four protein samples using the modified technique:  Markelz and her team were able to measure the vibrational pattern of the samples. Each sample generated a unique vibrational “fingerprint” based on the molecule’s light absorption pattern. The chicken egg protein samples, for instance, had a different light absorption spectra for freely moving proteins and for proteins that were bound by a compound that inhibits the lysozymes’ function. This shows that the new technique could recognize the presence of an inhibitor.  For more news stories and studies about proteins and their unique signatures, visit Science.news.


naturalnews--2019-12-24--Researchers look at the impact of medical foods in Alzheimer's patients

(Natural News) The connection between diet and neurodegenerative diseases has long been the subject of scientific investigations. Today, although much remains to be understood, researchers and clinicians acknowledge the importance of diet in preventing, delaying, or improving the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent cause of dementia around the world. This debilitating disease is still without a cure. Hence, scientists continue to search for viable treatments that can stop and reverse its progression.  In an article published in the journal Food Science and Human Wellness, researchers from China, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. reviewed dietary interventions used today for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. They also reviewed clinical studies and highlighted the importance of developing more reliable assessment tools to confirm the effects of medical foods and their role in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.  How diets and medical foods help in the treatment of Alzheimer’s  Despite advancements in modern medicine, treatments that can improve the symptoms of Alzheimer’s or delay — let alone prevent — its progression have not yet been developed. Today, treatment relies heavily on conventional medications, such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (e.g., donepezil, galantamine, and rivastigmine) or NMDA receptor antagonists like memantine. According to studies, these medications have little to no effect on cognitive impairment and cause unwanted side effects like headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting.  Mother Nature's micronutrient secret: Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary "sulforaphane" and "glucosinolate" nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See availability here.  Studies have also reported that some risk factors associated with dementia have something to do with diet. In addition, dietary components have been shown to influence brain activity and cognitive function. In recent years, more attention has been focused on exploring the potential of dietary interventions to improve Alzheimer’s symptoms. So far, researchers have explored the effects of the Mediterranean diet, ketogenic diets, and so-called medical foods on Alzheimer’s patients. (Related: Most cases of Alzheimer’s are preventable: New book explains how.)  The effects of the Mediterranean diet  The Mediterranean diet promotes the consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, seeds, nuts, and olive oil, and encourages the avoidance of red meat and processed foods. Epidemiological studies and clinical trials suggest that this type of diet improves cognitive performance and lowers the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.  Researchers attribute the neuroprotective effects of the Mediterranean diet on phytonutrients like flavonols, carotenoids, and sulfur compounds, as well as omega fatty acids, which help fight inflammation. Inflammation in the brain activates immune cells called microglia, and this activation has been linked to the development of Alzheimer’s.  Another characteristic of Alzheimer’s is a decrease in glucose utilization, particularly in the brain. Normally, the body produces alternative energy sources called ketone bodies when it is deprived of glucose. Scientists have discovered that while glucose metabolism is impaired in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, utilization of ketone bodies is unaffected. Hence, supplementing the brain with ketone bodies seems like a logical and promising treatment strategy.  Ketogenic diets involve the consumption of foods rich in fat, while carbohydrate intake is reduced or eliminated. This carbohydrate restriction robs the body of glucose and forces it to produce ketone bodies. Both animal and human studies have reported significant improvements in cognitive outcomes for subjects on ketogenic diets. Even older adults with age-related cognitive decline have been shown to benefit from this type of diet.  Medical foods were developed for the purpose of helping patients, especially those with metabolic diseases, meet specific dietary requirements. In the U.S., these foods have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use. So far, researchers have identified three medical foods that can improve Alzheimer’s symptoms. These medical foods are Axona, Souvenaid, and CerefolinNAC.  Axona consists of caprylic triglycerides, which can be obtained from coconut or palm oils, albeit in small quantities. Caprylic triglycerides are meant to serve as precursors for ketone bodies. Souvenaid is a drink that’s composed of a variety of nutrients, including phosphatide precursors, which could improve synaptic function. Synaptic dysfunction is a major cause of cognitive impairment.  CerefolinNAC, meanwhile, is a special formulation containing N-acetyl-cysteine, the supplement form of the amino acid homocysteine used to address hyperhomocysteinemia. Hyperhomocysteinemia lowers cognitive performance and is said to cause brain atrophy.  Although these medical foods have shown positive results in preliminary studies, the researchers believe that large-scale clinical studies involving the use of valid, sensitive, and reliable assessment tools are necessary to establish the efficacy of medical foods in treating Alzheimer’s disease.


slate--2019-09-17--Theres One Good Reason to Share Period App Data Medical Research

There’s One Good Reason to Share Period App Data: Medical Research

Last week, BuzzFeed News revealed that period trackers Mia Fem and Maya, which help their millions of users log everything from their bleeding to their mood to their sex habits, had been handing Facebook some of that information. The news seems like a good reason for everyone to go back to (or stick with) some kind of pen-and-paper situation for tracking menstrual cycles. But there are numerous upsides to using an app: Periods don’t adhere perfectly to a neat monthly schedule, which makes eyeballing when the next one will come difficult, and no one remembers to haul their old-fashioned physical calendar to the doctor’s office. Another underrated reason to stick with a digital tracker? Some apps share data not with Facebook but with scientific researchers. For them—and perhaps, in turn, you—the data sharing promises a deeper understanding of how menstrual cycles can vary, what side effects to expect from birth control, and better diagnostic tools for menstruation-related disease.  Computational biologist Laura Symul refers to datasets from menstrual apps as “a new microscope” into menstrual cycles. They help users track everything from mood to cramps to sex drive to even how your hair is behaving. In July, Symul published an assessment of the kinds of data that can be gleaned from tracking apps, offering a framework for digital epidemiologists to use it in their work. She looked at data from more than 200,000 users of two apps, Kindara and Sympto, totaling 2.7 million logs of cycles. Typically, studies on menstrual cycles have more like 50 participants, in part because it’s simply hard to encourage people to participate, says research psychologist Ruben Arslan. Last year, he published a study involving 1,000 women, which Slate’s Daniel Engber described at the time as a “massive survey study,” able to crush old claims from smaller, sloppier studies of the past. (For example: Women do not tend to put on sexy clothes when they’re ovulating, as had been suggested in published literature.)  Arslan is now working on new research using a massive, massive amount of data from the period tracker Clue, as an article on the app’s blog explains. In particular, he hopes to better understand the side effects of hormonal birth control, which many women are currently left to explore in their own personal and sometimes terrible game of trial and error. “Every side effect leaflet of the pill says it can change your libido, but there’s only been two larger randomized control trials that compare the pill to a placebo,” he says. “Any side effects that the pill may or may not have—it’s important to characterize them more thoroughly.” Down the line, his work could help people choose contraception that better suits them.  That sense of privacy is exactly what makes peeping in so valuable, whether the person looking is from a corporate conglomerate or is a well-meaning scientist.  Another area where Clue data could offer valuable breakthroughs is in understanding and managing pain, another aspect of women’s health that is too frequently overlooked. This week, Symul finished up a draft of a paper on breast tenderness. That symptom can vary with age and birth control method and, when it shows up unexpectedly, can cause people to worry (usually unnecessary) that they might have cancer. Researcher Noémie Elhadad, a bio informaticist who has worked on models to better predict periods (on a paper she co-authored with Clue researchers, since it will, presumably, also benefit the app) is excited about the data’s promise in understanding signs of endometriosis—a disease for which it takes many people years to get a diagnosis.  Of course, all this comes at a privacy cost. One of the reasons the apps’ data is so useful is that an app is “a safe space where women can report the symptoms in an honest way,” says Symul. She recognizes the irony here: That sense of privacy is exactly what makes peeping in so valuable, whether the person looking is from a corporate conglomerate or is a well-meaning scientist. “It’s not my favorite aspect of my research,” says Symul. Elhadad says that she’s personally concerned about how intimate biometric data could be misused as reproductive rights are continually under threat. It’s not all that hard to imagine a world in which insurance companies deny features or access to people who are, say, using certain kinds of contraception. She said that while she wasn’t surprised to hear that apps were forking over data to Facebook, it still concerned her. “As a woman, I’m worried politically, more than anything else, because of all the ways that Facebook has been misused,” says Elhadad. “Maybe it’s a little dystopian of me to be paranoid.”  At the same time, Elhadad and the other researchers I spoke to hoped that users would look carefully at the various ways in which apps share their data, perhaps most specifically considering with whom they share it. Clue notes right in its App Store description that it doesn’t sell data, which seems true: Researchers go through a selection process and then get the data for free. Researchers have to follow rules for using that data, submitting studies to an institutional review board here they work for approval (not a flawless layer of oversight but significantly more than a private company purchasing data would be required to have). All data they use is anonymized, names removed and dates shifted: “I’m a Clue user, and I’ve never been able to find myself,” says Symul.  I’m a Clue user, too. And I was happy to learn how my data was being used, particularly because it was so easily accessible. I found the scientists I spoke to in this piece via Clue’s own blog, which includes an article titled “The Journey of a Single Data Point.” I was also glad to learn that if I did want to opt out of data collection, I could download the app and track my own cycle without making an account, an option that I previously hadn’t been aware of.  Still, I was also surprised to be confronted with published papers and to be discussing studies that I would essentially be a participant in. Elhadad acknowledged that right now the burden is on users to read through privacy policies to figure out where their data is going. Even as a science reporter, I just don’t have the motivation or bandwidth to consider how literally every app on my phone might be skimming me for my biometrics. Which is why I think, perhaps particularly after the creepy revelations about its competitors, and even longer-held skepticism that menstrual apps are of more use to advertisers and researchers than to women, Clue can go even further out of its way to alert users that it’s collecting data. Medical science isn’t a monolith of good stuff, either; as a consumer, I want to be kept in the loop on which studies my data might be contributing to, in case it turns out to, say, be headed to someone with a string of retracted papers and a retro idea of gender. I’d love if the app offered a message on where data is heading when someone opens the app for the first time, and a push alert when new papers are published or even when data is handed to a new lab. Beyond being the right thing to do, for users like me who care about advancements in women’s health, reminders that we’re contributing to research would be an extra incentive to painstakingly share.


sottnet--2019-03-24--Data from medical research The right to know or not know

Data from medical research: The right to know, or not know

A familiar scenario: as part of having your cholesterol checked, your clinician also orders a standard blood panel - a red blood-cell count, and then a breakdown showing the proportions of five types of white blood cells. Less familiar: your cholesterol is fine (congratulations), but the white blood-cell counts are off, with values that could mean something fairly mild, such as a viral infection, or point to a serious, potentially fatal problem, such as cancer.Would you want your clinician to tell you about this abnormal finding?If you said 'yes', then you are expressing your right to know about the result. If you said 'no', then you are expressing the opposite: the right not to know.In most cases, the clinician would tell the patient about such an abnormal finding and discuss it. But what if the finding turned up in samples donated for medical research instead of taken for medical testing?That's exactly what's happened in Iceland. In the 1990s, researchers began collecting donated samples from the country's genetically distinct population. The chief officer of the company collecting and analysing these samples - which come from half the country's residents - says that 1,600 of them suggest a risk for a deadly cancer. But the government is keeping Kári Stefánsson, a neurologist, and his company, deCODE Genetics, from telling the donors. Why? The nation's privacy laws and the concept of the right not to know are in the way.Back when the collection started, deCODE did not get explicit consent from those donating samples to share such information with them. Indeed, the company was founded in 1996, and one of the cancer-related gene variants in the samples, BRCA2, was discovered only the year before. It would have been hard to foresee how genetic samples might be so revealing 20 years down the line.Iceland offers an example of the tension between the right to know or not, and the desire to do good or even save a life. As the bioethicist Benjamin Berkman at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) notes in his defence of informing people about such findings, the fault line here lies between 'autonomy and beneficence. We place an extremely high value on empowering and honouring an individual's choices, particularly in the medical realm,' he writes, yet clinicians and researchers baulk at the idea of remaining silent when speaking could substantially help patients or study participants.Iceland's situation isn't exactly common because they began the sample collection in 1996, before the implications of this knowledge - or even what that knowledge might be - became relevant. But that doesn't mean that these issues aren't globally important now. As many nations and other entities build up enormous biobanks of tissue and data, the issues will become more complex.UK Biobank offers a case in point. When participants submit samples to be mined for genetic information, they agree to receive no individual feedback about the results, and formally waive their right to know. But more recently, UK Biobank started adding data from imaging studies. Here, participants must be informed if a radiologist sees something suspicious on the scan; those who agree waive the right not to know.Some of this handwringing could be pitting the 20th-century paranoia over genetics against our 21st-century appreciation for genetic analysis as a clinical tool. Indeed, singling out genetics itself invokes an old-school fear of mutations in the double helices lurking in our cells. The reality is that the 'right' thing to do about these competing rights to know and not know - and to tell what you do know - varies depending on who's guiding the discussion. For example , a clinician ordering a test and finding something incidental but worrisome is already in a patient-doctor relationship with at least a tacit agreement to inform. But a researcher collecting DNA samples for a big data biobank has formed no such relationship and made no such commitment; there, the obligations are fuzzier.And that takes us to what a solution might look like: something that was planned, rather than retroactively applied. For the individual, the important thing is autonomy. For the researcher, it's the burden of knowledge and a desire to help. For a clinician, it's do no harm. For policymakers, it's about where to draw lines: right to know or not know what, exactly?It's possible to formalise frameworks for some of these groups. If the person who provides the sample opts for the right not to know, the door to change their mind should stay open in case someday they feel more ready to know. In addition, people who submit samples for research might benefit from the same process that's provided to people undergoing genetic testing in the clinic. Genetic counseling is strongly recommended before such testing, and this kind of preparation for research participants could clarify their decisions as well.Investigators who engage with these data on the research side deserve similar preparation and attention to their rights. Before getting involved in such studies, they should be able to give informed consent to withholding findings that could affect a donor's health. Study investigators should also be unable to link donors and results, removing the possibility of accidental informing, and lifting the burden of the knowledge.And what about the people who were never tested but who are genetic relatives to those with an identified risk or disease? These questions are especially important for parents considering a dive into the details of the family gene pool. After all, your genes aren't yours alone. You got them from your parents, and your biological children will get some of yours from you. The phrase 'personal genetics' implies risk for the individual alone, but in reality, the revelations - and repercussions - can span generations. Where do the lines get drawn for informing or testing them? Typically, the more knowledge of family medical history, the better. But these decisions play out differently for each family, depending upon personal ethics and culture.Finally, underlying all of these decisions are hundreds of knotty problems. Not all disease-related variants mean that the person bearing them will develop the condition. Some increase risk for disease by a tiny bit. But others, such as the BRCA2 gene, can mean a 69 per cent lifetime risk, and still others, such as the sequence repeats behind Huntington's disease, are essentially a guarantee that the condition will develop.Maybe Iceland's situation isn't easily resolved, but their experience offers a lesson. Plan ahead, something that the NIH is trying to do with 'All of Us', its large genetic-sampling initiative in the US. Offer the right to know or not to know, and allow for a change of heart. Understand the ache of the provider who knows what the patient doesn't, and can't reveal it. It's important to grant those with this burden of knowledge the opportunity to consent to nondisclosure before they get involved, too. Emily Willingham is an American writer. She is the co-author, with Tara Haelle, of The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Guide to Your Child's First Four Years (2016) and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.


theblaze--2019-02-25--Medical breakthrough Researchers believe a simple blood test might be able to detect cancer in earl

Medical breakthrough? Researchers believe a simple blood test might be able to detect cancer in early stages  How many lives could this technology save?


theindependent--2019-11-12--Trump administration to limit scientific and medical research used for public health law

The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations, overriding protests from scientists and physicians who say the new rule would undermine the scientific underpinnings of government policymaking.  A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal, titled “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science”, would require that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider an academic study’s conclusions.  EPA officials called the plan a step towards transparency and said the disclosure of raw data would allow conclusions to be verified independently.  “We are committed to the highest quality science,” Andrew Wheeler, the EPA administrator, told a congressional committee in September. “Good science is science that can be replicated and independently validated, science that can hold up to scrutiny.”  The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements.  And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place.  “This means the EPA can justify rolling back rules or failing to update rules based on the best information to protect public health and the environment, which means more dirty air and more premature deaths,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association.  Public health experts warned that studies that have been used for decades — to show, for example, that mercury from power plants impairs brain development, or that lead in paint dust is tied to behavioural disorders in children — might be inadmissible when existing regulations come up for renewal.  Last week the house committee on science, space and technology will hold a hearing on the EPA’s efforts.  A top pulmonary specialist and a representative of the country’s largest nonprofit funder of research on Parkinson’s disease, the Michael J Fox Foundation, are expected to testify that the EPA’s proposed rule would eliminate the use of valuable research showing the dangers of pollution to human health.


theirishtimes--2019-09-18--Data protection laws stalling medical research say charities

Data protection laws stalling medical research, say charities

Strict new laws around personal data protection have stalled vital medical research and prompted concerns that future trial participants might be put off, a group of charities has warned.  Requirements under the recently introduced European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) as well as new domestic research rules are now being applied retrospectively to ongoing studies, even in cases of frozen medical samples.  The Health Research Charities Ireland (HRCI) umbrella group, which represents organisation such as the Irish Cancer Society, Cystic Fibrosis Ireland and the Irish Heart Foundation, has said research is now “drawing to a halt”.  At the launch of its 2019 position paper Research Towards a Healthier Ireland at its conference on Wednesday, the group set out a number of recommendations including a public awareness campaign aimed at communicating the vital role of research in the face of more rigorous personal data policies.  “It’s very much a stress at the moment,” said HRCI chief executive Avril Kennan who explained those who took part in previous medical trials must now be contacted to re-establish consent on a more “stringent” level, a process that has the potential to cause distress in some historic cases.  “Most of the research community are very anxious about this,” she said, adding that “research is actually drawing to a halt”.  In cases where retrospective consent cannot be secured, medical samples must be disposed of. A special committee within the Health Research Board is examining how exemptions might be found in some cases.  Dr Kennan stressed there were pros and cons to the new regime – despite a slowing in research, patients are now being given more of a say in and understanding of how their data is being used.  “It’s really, really important that they do [participate in studies] but they may be turned off because suddenly there is all this focus on forms,” she said.  Consent procedures can typically take an hour which, while sounding like a relatively short amount of time, must be done in the case of each participant and guided by a professional, usually a research nurse for which there is limited funding.  The HRCI, in one of five pre-budget recommendations in its report, has said there is now a need for a public awareness campaign on the imperatives of research in the face of such data protection rules.  “Patients are now being asked to give more time and thought to the consent process, at an earlier stage in their care and at a time when the public is increasingly concerned about the misuse of their personal data,” it said. “This has the potential to reduce the number of patients participating in research studies.”  Its paper also calls for an Irish genome project to benefit healthcare innovation.  “Genomic research on all forms of human genetic disease, from cancer, to rare single-gene conditions like cystic fibrosis, to complex conditions with many causes like multiple sclerosis, is pointing the way to better and a more personal approach to medicine,” it says.  “Giving the right medicines to the right people, at the right time, will make the health service more cost effective.”  The document also states that Irish attitudes towards domestic research must shift from a “nice to have it” mentality to a more determined pursuit.  “In a health service beset by too few hospital beds, a lack of staff and recent high-profile crises, research is therefore always put on the back burner.”


thetorontostar--2019-11-04--Scientists with links to China may be stealing biomedical research, U.S. says

The scientist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston was hardly discreet. “Here is the bones and meet of what you want,” he wrote in a misspelled email to researchers in China.  Attached was a confidential research proposal, according to administrators at the centre. The scientist had access to the document only because he had been asked to review it for the National Institutes of Health — and the centre had examined his email because federal officials had asked them to investigate him.  The NIH and the FBI have begun a vast effort to root out scientists who they say are stealing biomedical research for other countries from institutions across the United States. Almost all of the incidents they uncovered and that are under investigation involve scientists of Chinese descent, including naturalized U.S. citizens, allegedly stealing for China.  Seventy-one institutions, including many of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States, are now investigating 180 individual cases involving potential theft of intellectual property. The cases began after the NIH, prompted by information provided by the FBI, sent 18,000 letters last year urging administrators who oversee government grants to be vigilant.  So far, the NIH has referred 24 cases in which there may be evidence of criminal activity to the inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services, which may turn over the cases for criminal prosecution. “It seems to be hitting every discipline in biomedical research,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, deputy director for extramural research at the NIH.  The investigations have fanned fears that China is exploiting the relative openness of the U.S. scientific system to engage in wholesale economic espionage. At the same time, the scale of the dragnet has sent a tremor through the ranks of biomedical researchers, some of whom say ethnic Chinese scientists are being unfairly targeted for scrutiny as Washington’s geopolitical competition with Beijing intensifies.  “You could take a dart board with medical colleges with significant research programs and, as far as I can tell, you’d have a 50-50 chance of hitting a school with an active case,” said Dr. Ross McKinney Jr., chief scientific officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges.  The alleged theft involves not military secrets, but scientific ideas, designs, devices, data and methods that may lead to profitable new treatments or diagnostic tools.  Some researchers under investigation have obtained patents in China on work funded by the U.S. government and owned by U.S. institutions, the NIH said. Others are suspected of setting up labs in China that secretly duplicated U.S. research, according to government officials and university administrators.  The NIH has not named most of the scientists under investigation, citing due process, and neither have most of the institutions involved. “As with any personnel matter, we typically do not share names or details of affected individuals,” said Brette Peyton, a spokeswoman at M.D. Anderson.  But roughly a dozen scientists are known to have resigned or been fired from universities and research centres across the United States so far. Some have declined to discuss the allegations against them; others have denied any wrongdoing.  In several cases, scientists supported by the NIH or other federal agencies are accused of accepting funding from the Chinese government in violation of NIH rules. Some have said that they did not know the arrangements had to be disclosed or were forbidden.  In August, Feng Tao, 48, a chemist at the University of Kansas known as Franklin, was indicted on four counts of fraud for allegedly failing to disclose a full-time appointment at a Chinese university while receiving federal funds.  His lawyer, Peter R. Zeidenberg, declined to comment on Tao’s case but suggested that prosecutors were targeting academics nationwide who had made simple mistakes.  “Professors, they get their summers off,” he said in an interview. “Oftentimes they will take appointments in China for the summer. They don’t believe they have to report that.”  “The next thing you know, they are being charged with wire fraud with 20-year penalties,” he added. “It’s like, are you kidding me?”  The investigations have left Chinese and Chinese-American academics feeling “that they will be targeted and that they are at risk,” said Frank Wu, a law professor at the University of California Hastings School of the Law and former president of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans.  Wu and other critics said the cases recalled the government’s five-year investigation of Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who was accused in 1999 of stealing nuclear warhead plans for China and incarcerated for months, only to be freed after the government’s case essentially collapsed. He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of mishandling secrets.  More recently, the Justice Department has been forced to drop theft charges against at least four Chinese-American scientists since 2014: two former Eli Lilly scientists in Indiana, a National Weather Service hydrologist in Ohio and a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Justice Department changed its rules in 2016, giving greater oversight over these national security cases to prosecutors in Washington.  But Lauer and other officials said the investigations into biomedical research have uncovered clear evidence of wrongdoing. In one case at M.D. Anderson, a scientist who had packed a suitcase with computer hard drives containing research data was stopped at the airport on the way to China, Lauer and officials at the centre said.  Overall, they argued, the cases paint a disturbing picture of economic espionage in which the Chinese government has been taking advantage of a biomedical research system in the United States built on trust and the free exchange of ideas.  “How would you feel if you were a U.S. scientist sending your best idea to the government in a grant application, and someone ended up doing your project in China?” McKinney asked.  Concern at the NIH about the theft of biomedical research stretches back at least to June 2016, when the FBI contacted NIH officials with unusual questions about the U.S. scientific research system.  How did peer review happen? What sort of controls were in place? “They needed to know how our system worked as compared to, say, national defence,” Lauer said.  The FBI declined to discuss ongoing investigations, including why it initiated so many and how targets were selected. But Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in July that China is using “non-traditional collectors” of intelligence, and is attempting to “steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”  The FBI’s national field office for commercial counter-espionage, in Houston, asked administrators from Texas academic and medical centres to attend classified meetings in the summer of 2018 to discuss evidence of intellectual property theft. The administrators were given emergency security clearances and told to sign nondisclosure agreements.  Then, acting on information from the FBI and other sources, the NIH in late August 2018 began sending letters to medical centres nationwide asking administrators to investigate individual scientists.  “This was something we had never seen,” Lauer said. “It took us a while to grasp the seriousness of the problem.”  Some of the first inklings of trouble were discovered by administrators at M.D. Anderson, a prominent cancer research and treatment centre. Between August 2018 and January 2019, five letters arrived at the centre from the NIH asking administrators to investigate the activities of five faculty members.  Dr. Peter Pisters, president of the cancer centre, said he and his colleagues reviewed faculty emails, and they turned up disturbing evidence.  Among the redacted emails provided to The New York Times was one by a scientist planning to whisk proprietary test materials to colleagues in China. “I should be able to bring the whole sets of primers to you (if I can figure out how to get a dozen tubes of frozen DNA onto an airplane),” he wrote.  The redacted M.D. Anderson emails also suggest that a scientist at the medical centre sent data and research to the Chinese government in exchange for a $75,000 one-year “appointment” under the Thousand Talents Program, which Beijing established a decade ago to recruit scientists to Chinese universities.  Researchers are legally obligated to disclose such payments to the NIH and to their academic institutions, and the scientist had not done so.  Still another scientist at M.D. Anderson had forwarded a confidential research proposal to a contact in China, writing, “Attached please find an application about mitochondrial DNA mutation in tumour development. Please keep it to yourself.”  Administrators at M.D. Anderson said three of the scientists had resigned and one had retired. The fifth case involved a scientist whose transgressions may not be serious enough to be fired.  Dr. Xifeng Wu, who left M.D. Anderson and is now dean of the School of Public Health at Zhejiang University in China, declined to comment on the circumstances of her resignation. “I would like to focus on my research,” she said.  M.D. Anderson is not the only institution wrestling with possible scientific misconduct.  Last month, two married scientists, Yu Zhou, 49, and Li Chen, 46, who had worked at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for a decade, were indicted on charges that they stole technology developed at the hospital and used it to apply for Chinese patents and set up biotech companies in China and the United States.  Zhou’s lawyer, Glenn Seiden, said in an email that the couple did not commit any crimes, and that Zhou is a “trailblazer” in scientific research.  In May, two scientists at Emory University in Atlanta, Dr. Li Xiao-Jiang and Dr. Li Shihua, were fired after administrators discovered that Dr. Li Xiao-Jiang had received funding from China’s Thousand Talents Program.  The couple had worked there for more than two decades, researching Huntington’s disease. University administrators declined to provide further information.  “They treated us like criminals,” Li Xiao-Jiang said in an interview near Jinan University in southern China, where he and his wife now work. He disputed the suggestion that they had failed to report ties to China.  “Our work is for humanity,” Li Shihua added. “You can’t say if I worked in China, I’m not loyal to the U.S.”  In July, Dr. Kang Zhang, the former chief of eye genetics at the University of California, San Diego, resigned after local journalists disclosed his involvement with a biotech firm in China that seemed to rely on research he had performed at the university.  Zhang, also a member of the Thousand Talents Program, did not tell the university about his role. His lawyer, Leo Cunningham, said that Zhang’s suspension was not related to his involvement with the Chinese biotech firm or the program, but instead to his conduct as an investigator in a clinical trial two years earlier.  What is coming to light, Lauer said, is “a tapestry of incidents.”  Startup companies in China, federal officials say, were founded on scientific and medical technology that the NIH developed with taxpayer money. “We know there are companies formed in China for which we funded the research,” Lauer said.  Some scientists of Chinese descent also secretly received patents in China for research conducted in the United States, according to Lauer, and some researchers in the Thousand Talents Program signed contracts that require them to provide the Chinese government with confidential results obtained in the United States or other lab discoveries.  “If the NIH funded it, it should be available to U.S. taxpayers,” said McKinney, of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “But if a project is also funded in China, it is moving intellectual property to China.”  Federal and academic officials stress that they are not targeting Chinese researchers on the basis of their ethnicity. But the FBI’s silence regarding how so many investigations began has exacerbated concern that the government’s efforts to uncover economic espionage may tar all Chinese and Chinese-American scientists — and make it more difficult to recruit Chinese students and scholars.  “We can’t tell who is guilty or innocent, but look at the actual effect on people of Chinese descent,” said Wu, the law professor. “People are living in fear. It is a question of impact rather than intent.”  With the Trump administration taking a harder line against China, including imposing tariffs intended to punish violations of intellectual property rights, Wu sees a sharp reversal in attitudes about China and the Chinese.  “I am getting calls and emails constantly now from ethnic Chinese — even those who are U.S. citizens — who feel threatened,” he said. But few are willing to step forward with allegations of discrimination, he added.  To Lauer, the charges of racism are unfounded. “Not all the foreign influence cases involve China,” he said. “But the vast majority do.”  The real question, he added, is how to preserve the open exchange of scientific ideas in the face of growing security concerns. At M.D. Anderson, administrators are tightening controls to make data less freely available.  People can no longer use personal laptops on the wireless network. The centre has barred the use of flash drives and disabled USB ports. And all of its employees’ computers can now be monitored remotely.  The NIH is clamping down, too. It recommends that reviewers of grant applications have limited ability to download or print them. Those travelling to certain regions should use loaner computers, it says, and academic institutions should be alert to frequent foreign travel by scientists, or frequent publishing with colleagues outside the United States.  The National Science Foundation has commissioned an independent scientific advisory group to recommend ways of balancing openness and security, and warned scientists it funds that they are prohibited from participating in programs like China’s Thousand Talents Program.  The FBI has given research institutions tools to scan emails for keywords in Mandarin that might tip off administrators to breaches, according to McKinney.  “The effects this will have on long-term, trusting relationships are hard for us to face,” he said. “We just are not used to systematic cheating.”


russiainsider--2019-01-05--Russias Scientific Revolution - Exciting Breakthroughs in Research and Technology Russian TV News

Russia’s Scientific Revolution - Exciting Breakthroughs in Research and Technology (Russian TV News)

This segment goes over the rapid advances in science and technology in Russia.  This research is overwhelmingly focused on practical and useful technologies rather than wasteful expenditures like trips to the moon.  One of the most incredible advances is a surgeon using a digital robot to perform surgery on a living animal, an unprecedented feat that can be applied to improve human medical advances in the future.  This state-backed scientific revolution stands in contrast to Western projects like the “gender revolution”. Perhaps Westerners could take note of what science can do when aimed at advancing human potential, rather than creating endless new cosmopolitan social identities.  How to create a scientific and technological leap for Russia? Where should priority be given — to nanotechnology, digitization, medicine, energy, or, maybe, to fundamental researches? These topics were discussed at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences for two days. Alena Rogozina's report on how scientific potential is turning into a competitive advantage of Russia. The synchrotron mega-installation of the Kurchatov Institute allows us to look at any substance at the atomic level. Properties of living organisms can be given to ordinary things via atom modeling. - We took a piece of a semiconductor crystal. There are only 8 atoms in the unit cell. We built a unique civilization in 60 years. During this time, we understood how living beings work. Our task today is to combine fundamental technology, I mean solid-state microelectronics, with an understanding of how animate nature works. There are revolutionary technologies in medicine. For the first time in history, a surgeon operated a completely digital robot to perform surgery inside of a living organism. The robot was made domestically. The surgeon is also Russian. - This is our machine. It must be completed. It must be made. As we say, it must be provided to every hospital where it is necessary. Such operations should be performed there routinely. They should become a guarantee for our patients. The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences has determined seven priority areas. High technology is one of the key non-energy exports of our country. Unprecedented investments became possible due to the "Science" National Project. - We already have the first steps of implementing scientific projects in commercial products. Both science and business are ready to work together in this field. I think these scientific and technical programs will be developed in the near future. Russia has enormous scientific potential. Research is continuing at Moscow State University with the help of the Lomonosov supercomputer. So far people have studied only 5% of the substance the universe consists of. - About 60% of the world's capacity has industrial and scientific application. They are used to obtain competitive products. The process of turning research into innovations is considered to be a more important task than the flight to the moon, scientists say. The idea is that Russian and international companies interested in high technology would acquire innovative products here in Russia and use our technology base and our potential.


slate--2019-05-30--Why Do So Many Researchers Still Treat Race as a Scientific Concept

Why Do So Many Researchers Still Treat Race as a Scientific Concept?

In 2003, the anthropologist Duana Fullwiley spent six months observing a team of biomedical research scientists. The team wanted to find out whether genetic variation could affect how different people respond to drugs, and to do so, they recruited a group of racially and ethnically diverse research subjects. They were a diverse team themselves, with good intentions to address a worthy problem—it’s well known that different races suffer from health problems at different rates and can respond differently to treatments. If they could trace these discrepancies to genetic differences between races, the team reasoned, they could explain, and perhaps start to resolve, these health disparities.  After observing their work, the anthropologist asked each of them a simple question: How would you define race?  “You know—probably I haven’t given that as much thought as I should have,” said the team’s lead scientist. Others fumbled, paused, or dodged the question. When pushed, one researcher acknowledged that racial categories didn’t mean that much but in the same breath insisted that defining races genetically was the way to go. Not one could offer a coherent answer.  British science journalist Angela Saini tells this story in her exceptional and damning new book, Superior: The Return of Race Science. “Race was the entire premise upon which they were doing their research, but they were unable to tell her what it was,” writes Saini. “Their work instead seemed to rest upon a hope that if they just persisted, they would eventually come to find meaning in these categories. What they couldn’t yet define would then be defined. Somehow it would become real.”  In the 16 years since the anthropologist made her observations, scientists have still not found any meaningful biological definition of race. All human genomes are 99.5 percent identical, and although it’s true that the remaining 0.5 percent can vary in ways that correlate with geographical ancestry, these correlations do not strictly map to racial categories. If you hand a scientist your genome, she might be able to tell you something about the geographical distribution of your ancestors, but she cannot tell you what race you are. There’s simply nothing in the genome that’s an unambiguous marker of race. And yet, many scientists and doctors continue to use race as if it’s a meaningful biological category.  Saini’s book comes at a time when race science is making a startling comeback. Ethno-nationalists like Steve Bannon channel race science when alluding to the “naturally aggressive and violent” tendencies of black people. White nationalists chug milk as an absurd means of “celebrating” that people of northern European descent more commonly have a genetic trait that enables them to digest lactose as adults. Professional gadflies like Sam Harris fan the flames by presenting race science as forbidden knowledge that a politically correct left is trying to suppress. These are all disturbing turns, but what’s more surprising is the way race biology has creeped further into the mainstream: Last year, prominent geneticist David Reich wrote an op-ed for the New York Times calling for a renewed look at this troubling line of scientific inquiry. In medicine, drugs are sometimes labeled for—and marketed to—different racial and ethnic groups. More broadly, the popular misconception that DNA ancestry tests prove “race” or “ethnicity” has also only helped reinforce the assumption of innate biological differences between what are, in fact, socially defined categories.  In Superior, Saini expertly chronicles the broader social forces that have reinvigorated race science. She’s at her strongest, however, when investigating the role scientists have consciously or unconsciously played in the origin, perpetuation, and resurgence of this deadliest of ideas. Scientists today tend to think of themselves as experts who deal only in scientific fact, rather than as unwitting agents of political ideologies. In the molecular machinery of cells, they see themselves as seeking a higher truth. But, writes Saini, scientists are not immune to the political forces that shape us all: “We automatically translate the information our eyes and ears receive into the language of race, forgetting where this language came from.” Like almost everyone else, Saini writes, scientists struggle to think outside of a biological conception of race.  For such a weighty topic, Superior is a surprisingly easy-to-read blend of science reporting, cultural criticism, and personal reflection. Taking us from a remote site in Western Australia where recently discovered cave drawings predate those in Europe to a posh area of Paris that contains the hidden ruins of a colonial-era “human zoo,” Saini connects the dots from the dawn of modern scientific ideas about race during the Enlightenment to their abandonment after the horrors of World War II to their revival by today’s milk-chugging white nationalists in the age of genomics and DNA ancestry testing. For many on the left, Saini’s book will reaffirm the simple narrative that far-right, fact-challenged white supremacists are abusing science for sinister political ends. But she’s also telling a far more complex and surprising story about the relationship between science and race today, one that is sure to challenge anyone who thinks these ideas are only kept afloat by avowed racists.  Scientists are not immune to the political forces that shape us all.  Saini interviews a number of scientists, who insist they are “apolitical” or that “the data speak for themselves.” They seem dismissive of the idea that cultural assumptions could shape their science. This blind spot is where Saini takes aim, showing again and again how conceptual muddiness around race leads even brilliant scientists astray. Take David Reich, the geneticist who wrote the New York Times op-ed. Reich calls race a social construct, then claims, “it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among ‘races.’ ” He goes on to provide numerous examples to prove his point, but they confusingly commingle ancestry and race—a distinction Reich makes earlier in the very same op-ed. “The data, the theories, the facts themselves, are rotated and warped until they fit into a racial framework we can relate to,” Saini writes. “This is the power of race. It is the power to twist science to its own ends.”  To illuminate this power, Saini offers the cautionary tale of the search for “black genes.” In the United States, hypertension is far more common in black Americans than in other groups, and heart attacks and strokes are more likely to kill a black American than a white American. This has caused scientists to speculate there might be some intrinsic biological factor that explains these disparities. One hypothesis, put forth in the 1980s, was that black Americans metabolize salt differently as a legacy of the slave trade: Slaves who retained more salt would be less susceptible to dehydration and so more likely to survive when crossing the Atlantic. “It was an evocative story, giving the tragic brutality of slavery an extra poignancy,” Saini writes. “Sensitivity to salt, which had helped some through the brutal journey across the Atlantic, landed their unfortunate descendants in the twentieth century with the fatal scourge of hypertension.” The hypothesis felt so correct and compelling that by 2007 even Oprah and Dr. Oz were discussing it on TV. But for years, no one could find proof for the slavery-hypertension hypothesis, or for any other biological differences between black Americans and other groups that could explain the different rates of hypertension. “If anything could settle the debate once and for all,” Saini writes, “it would be the glittering new science of genomics.”  Finally, in 2009, a team found five genetic variants associated with blood pressure in black Americans. People were excited about the results, and the study was part of a movement to search for genetic causes of racial health disparities. “In that moment it felt as though there really might be a whole host of tangible genetic differences between races that would help science get to the root of disproportionate ill health in black Americans,” Saini writes. Millions of dollars were poured into similar genetic research. Then, in 2012, when another team tried to replicate the results in twice as many people, the effects of the five gene variants disappeared into the background.  The hunt for genetic culprits, which, again, grew out of an honest desire to find a solution, seemed to blind many scientists to nonbiological explanations. A 2011 study discovered that level of education predicted whether a black American would have hypertension far better than genetic ancestry. Further studies found other nongenetic factors that could explain the higher rates, including living in a city, eating a diet high in salt, or excessive stress. “Despite heavy resources poured into finding a gene, researchers have still found no association or mechanism that can fully account for higher hypertension in black Americans,” Saini writes. “The weight of evidence so far points elsewhere.”  There’s a far simpler explanation for what causes higher hypertension or, really, any health disparity between racial groups. Saini interviews Dorothy E. Roberts, a law and sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Roberts points out that trying to attribute health disparities to genetic variation already makes no sense—some black Americans have mostly European ancestry, some have mostly Asian ancestry, and some have mostly Native American ancestry. Any individual black American could have almost any genetic background—ancestry is not synonymous with race. What black Americans have in common is that America has created a deeply unequal world for black Americans to inhabit. Black Americans have, on average, less access to health care and less money to spend on health care. They have less access to healthy food. They are more likely to live in polluted areas. We know that these lived experiences correlate with worse health outcomes and shorter life spans. “The most plausible, to me the only possible, explanation could be because of inferior social conditions,” Roberts told Saini.  What’s at stake here, scientifically, is that scientists’ focus on genetics to explain racial health disparities may come at the expense of other, much-needed research. If it’s racism that has very real health consequences, and if racism could in fact better explain perceived racial differences than genetics, then we should be investing more in studying health and racism. But addressing how unequal housing, food, education, and wealth lead to poor health is much less attractive—both scientifically and commercially—than inventing a special pill to help black people.  If it’s racism that has very real health consequences, then we should be investing more in studying health and racism.  This is an argument that many sociologists, historians of science, and others have put forward for decades. Even some scientists recognized this early in the age of genomics. In 2004, Francis Collins, then director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wrote, “In many instances, the causes of health disparities will have little to do with genetics, but rather derive from differences in culture, diet, socioeconomic status, access to health care, education, environmental exposures, social marginalization, discrimination, stress and other factors.” In other words, if you are a black American with cancer, it’s likely less about a “black gene” than about the American experience of being black.  But in the years since, biomedical researchers have continued their search for genetic explanations without appearing to consider the relevance of lived experience. In 2016, a team led by public health researchers and former New York City Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett searched the medical literature since 2000 and found 47,855 review articles discussing race and health. Only 1,996—about 4 percent—contained any mention of “racism.” According to Saini, Bassett’s paper is a warning “that scientists were too often turning to biology to answer questions that could so clearly be better explained by social inequality.”  Racialized thinking is such a deep part of America’s national psyche—the psyche of scientists included—that there’s an overwhelming pull to seek out biological mechanisms to explain racial health disparities. In the case of blood pressure and salt sensitivity, Saini reminds us, “People wanted so much for the story to be true, to be able to link the trauma of slavery to the trauma of black American deaths today, that they couldn’t look past it to more mundane explanations.”  Too heavy a focus on race-based medicine not only has public health implications; it also has political ones. As ethno-nationalism surges, the tacit stamp of scientific approval for race as a biological category is increasingly dangerous. No matter what scientists’ intentions, race-based medicine and biomedical research reinforces the notion of innate biological differences between racial groups, feeding racist ideas. “This doesn’t mean that racial categories shouldn’t be used in medicine or in science more generally,” writes Saini. But it does mean that when using racial categories, Saini writes, scientists “should fully understand what they mean, be able to define them, and to know their history. They should at least know what race is.”  It’s easy to see why scientists might bristle at Saini’s work. Both here as in her previous book, which focuses on science and gender, Saini holds a mirror up to the modern scientific enterprise, and the reflection is not flattering. I can find at least one explanation for scientists’ naïveté in my own experiences as a former research scientist and current instructor of aspiring research scientists: Scientists are required to take ethics courses, but these courses tend to focus on the ethical behaviors of scientists and the ethical ramifications of science. In other words, we consider how science percolates out of the lab and into the broader culture. What we tend not to address is how the broader culture finds its way back into the lab to influence our science. A small step would be for us to spend more time thinking not only about how our science shapes society, but also how society shapes our science. (After reading Saini’s books, I suggested we add such a section to the ethics course my department offers.) The best scientists relentlessly question their own scientific assumptions. It might make for even better science if they used this same self-awareness to question their cultural ones.


tass--2019-09-24--Wanted Five Volunteers to Join Scientific Research Mission to Antarctica

Wanted: Five Volunteers to Join Scientific Research Mission to Antarctica

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Airbnb and Ocean Conservancy announced the Antarctic Sabbatical, an unprecedented opportunity for five passionate individuals to travel to Earth's most remote continent and join Antarctic Scientist Kirstie Jones-Williams on a first-of-its-kind scientific research mission in December.  The five volunteer citizen scientists will collect snow samples and study the extent to which microplastics have made their way to the interior of Antarctica. The goal of the Antarctic Sabbatical is to bring greater awareness to humans' impact on the climate in one of the world's least understood and most isolated ecosystems. By understanding the impact of plastic pollution generated elsewhere in the world, the citizen scientists will deliver insights on how the global community can help protect both Antarctica and the planet.  "Most people think of Antarctica as a pristine and isolated continent, but recent evidence shows that even the most remote locations are affected by plastic pollution. This expedition will help us understand the pathways of microplastics to remote regions such as Antarctica and comes at a critical time to highlight our responsibility to protect our natural world," said Jones-Williams. "This expedition will be hard work, with scientific rigour required during unforgiving wintery conditions. We are looking for passionate individuals, with a sense of global citizenship, who are excited to be a part of the team and to return home and share our findings with the world."  On the month-long expedition, the citizen scientists will:  Airbnb is committed to providing the option for sustainable travel to its community at every point of the trip. To further this commitment, Airbnb is working with Ocean Conservancy to use the research findings from the Antarctic Sabbatical to inform educational and advocacy efforts. Airbnb is also conducting an environmental impact assessment to measure and understand our impact and to identify what we can do to reduce our footprint over time. These are foundational steps that will inform future commitments and our vision to be a leader in sustainable travel.  "Partnering with Airbnb on the Antarctic Sabbatical is an incredible opportunity to continue our fight against ocean plastic and raise awareness of this issue," said Janis Searles Jones, CEO of Ocean Conservancy. "Through our annual International Coastal Cleanup, where volunteers not only collect trash from beaches and waterways around the world but also log every item in our global database, Ocean Conservancy has a long history of working with citizen scientists, and we look forward to applying the results of this expedition to global solutions."  The Airbnb community values healthy travel, including the 64 percent of guests who chose Airbnb in 2018 because they value that it is an environmentally sustainable travel option* that makes the most of spare space in people's homes.  "Together with Ocean Conservancy, we are highlighting the problem of microplastics to encourage a global audience to give great thought to the consequences of how we live and take collective action," said Chris Lehane, Senior Vice President of Global Policy and Communications of Airbnb. "While Airbnb is inherently more eco-friendly than other forms of travel given that people are using spaces already built, we need to continue to find ways for the platform to contribute to reducing the impact of humans on the environment. There is far more we need to do and will be looking to do as we go forward."  The Antarctic Sabbatical follows the Italian Sabbatical, which was an urban regeneration project by Airbnb and Wonder Grottole that offered the opportunity for five volunteers to spend three months living in the historic town of Grottole in southern Italy to help revitalize a community that was facing extinction. The Sabbatical program is designed to inspire people to take advantage of earned time off to give back to the people and places around them for a life-changing experience.  To apply for the Antarctic Sabbatical, visit airbnb.com/sabbatical and complete the application form, terms apply.***  *Guest sentiment is based on nearly 12,000 responses to a voluntary survey sent to a sample of Airbnb guest accounts that had taken a trip to select countries in 2018. No payment or other incentive was provided in exchange for completing the survey.  **Based on Airbnb internal data of year-over-year growth globally in guest arrivals to eco-friendly active listings (Eco-friendly listings are defined as the following spacetypes: 'Earthhouse', 'Yurt', 'Treehouse', 'Tent', 'Nature Lodge', 'Cabin') and Experiences bookings, comparing August 1, 2018 to August 1, 2019.  ***Before applying, carefully read the selection terms available on the website. Candidates must be over 18, available to travel to Chile and Antarctica for a month from November to December 2019 to conduct volunteer work as citizen scientists and be able to speak conversational English. The final selection of five citizen scientists will be announced on October 30. The sabbatical is open to residents in the following countries and regions: Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Dubai, France, Germany, Ireland, India, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, and US.  Founded in 2008, Airbnb's mission is to create a world where people can belong through healthy travel that is local, authentic, diverse, inclusive and sustainable. Airbnb uniquely leverages technology to economically empower millions of people around the world to unlock and monetize their spaces, passions and talents and become hospitality entrepreneurs. Airbnb's accommodation marketplace provides access to 7 million unique places to stay in more than 100,000 cities and 191 countries and regions. With Experiences, Airbnb offers unprecedented access to local communities and interests through 40,000 unique, handcrafted activities run by hosts across 1,000+ cities around the world. Airbnb's people-to-people platform benefits all our stakeholders, including hosts, guests, employees and the communities in which we operate.  Ocean Conservancy is working to protect the ocean from today's greatest global challenges. Together with their partners, they create science-based solutions for a healthy ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it.  Antarctic Scientist Kirstie Jones-Williams specializes in investigating the impact of microplastics on polar marine zooplankton. She is earning her PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Exeter in the UK, funded by the NERC GW4+ DTP training program.


theindependent--2019-02-09--Mass retraction of scientific studies demanded over fears research organs came from executed Chinese

Mass retraction of scientific studies demanded over fears research organs came from executed Chinese prisoners

A team of Australian researchers have called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers after a study claimed organs were unethically harvested from Chinese prisoners.  According to the study, published by the journal BMJ Open, Chinese scientists may not have followed international ethics rules over donor consent for organ transplants when carrying out the experiments using hearts, lungs or livers taken from dead prisoners.  Wendy Rogers, from Macquarie University in Sydney, said there was no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent.  “Everyone seems to say, ‘It’s not our job’. The world’s silence on this barbaric issue must stop,” she told The Guardian.  A 2016 report by former Canadian lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas, and journalist Ethan Gutmann found a massive discrepancy between official figures for the number of transplants carried out and the number of transplants reported by hospitals.  While the Chinese government claims 10,000 transplants occur each year, hospital data shows between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year. The report claimed the shortfall is made up by secretly executed prisoners of conscience – those whose crimes are having political or religious views that clash with Chinese authorities.  The scientific community has strict standards for organ transplant research but China is one of the few countries where the use of prisoners' organs has been government sanctioned.  The new study looked at transplant research experiments carried out from January 2000 until April 2017. They identified 445 studies involving 85,477 transplants.  “A large body of unethical research now exists, raising issues of complicity and moral hazard to the extent that the transplant community uses and benefits from the results of this research,” the researchers write in the study.  “We call for a retraction of this literature pending investigation of the individual papers.”  This is the first study to track the progress of the transplant community in vetting unethical research.  In 2017, medical journal Liver International retracted a paper by Chinese transplant surgeons after the source of organs used in their research was queried by a group of academics.  While China vowed to stop using organs from executed prisoners in 2015, no new law or regulation has been passed banning the practice.


theindependent--2019-07-03--Hungaryaposs far-right government passes law that lets it take over scientific research bodies

Hungary's far-right government passes law that lets it take over scientific research bodies

Hungary‘s far-right government has passed a law allowing the state to tighten its control over scientific research bodies.  The law strips the 200-year-old Hungarian Academy of Sciences of its network of 15 research bodies and hands them over to a committee.  The committee’s chairman will be appointed by Viktor Orban, the Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, and half of its members will be selected by the government.  Lydia Gall, Eastern Europe and Balkans researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the law is “essentially another nail in the coffin for academic freedom and independent thought” in the country.  “This is the latest in a line of attacks on academic freedom after forcing the Central European University out of the country and banning gender studies at universities,” she told The Independent.  Liviu Matei, provost of the Central European University, said: “This is just another moment illustrating the disdain of this government – of the regime perhaps I should say – for the value of science, for academic freedom, for the rule of law and democracy. It’s not something new in Hungary. It’s just confirming a trend that has been here for many years now.”  Professor Matei said one Hungarian research team had already decided to leave the country and move to Sweden “because they cannot continue their work here”. He added: “Freedom for science, for education, is being restricted almost by the day.”  Ms Gall, the Human Rights Watch researcher, said members of the academy had told her they were “all quite worried” about how the takeover could affect their research.  “There is a general fear among the scientific community that their research will be controlled by the government,” she said.  Some researchers fear they will be required to provide evidence for “preconceived notions” suggested by the state committee, she said. “This goes against the whole general understanding of what an academy of sciences should be doing,” she added.  She concluded: “The research that’s being done by this academy is going to be extremely compromised.”  Through allocating funding, the government-controlled committee could potentially cut financing for researchers working on topics such as gender studies or climate change, Ms Gall added.  Mr Orban has previously banned gender studies programmes in the country and blocked the European Union’s climate change target for all of the union’s member states to go carbon neutral by 2050.  Since he took power in 2010, Mr Orban’s nationalist government has politicised Hungary’s courts, media and universities and the European Parliament has voted to punish him for his crackdown on the country’s democratic institutions.  The Central European University, which was founded by billionaire George Soros, expressed solidarity with the Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.  “The adoption of the law, following months of political pressure, threats and blackmail proffered by the government, illustrates once again the disdain of Mr Viktor Orban’s regime for the value of science, academic freedom and, at the same time, blundering disregard for the rule of law,” a spokesperson said.  “Disbanding the research network of the Academy of Sciences is another sad day for Hungary. It marks the abusive end of the most prestigious research organisation of Hungary, with a history of excellence and service to the Hungarian nation extending over 150 years.”  Thousands of Hungarians have protested the planned overhaul of research bodies and budgets, which they see as the government’s latest attempt to expand its role in public life.  Laszlo Palkovics, the country’s innovation and technology minister who authored the bill, said the change was needed ”to ensure a sustainable boost to Hungary’s long-term competitiveness ... [and] a more efficient use of resources.”  The European Commission said it will monitor Hungary’s public research system and urged authorities “to refrain from any decision restricting scientific and academic freedom”.