Women in Science

We all know of some amazing women in science: Marie Curie, known for her work on radioactivity, Rosalind Franklin for identifying the structure of DNA, and Barbara McClintock who described gene transposition. So why is there always a fuss about not enough women in science?

Women have historically been underrepresented in the sciences, though there are certainly more women in science now than there have been in the past. In 1996, 35% of doctorate degrees in STEM fields went to women; in 2006, that number jumped to 46%. But the numbers are still grim in the workforce. In 2006, only 28% of tenured or tenure-track academicians were women. Of course, we can’t compare that to the number of doctoral degrees awarded to women in the same year, so I’ll walk through time.

In 1988, women earned 41% of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering. By 1990, when those students would be earning their next degree, only 34% of master’s degrees went to women. In 1996, women earned 34% of doctorate degrees, and ten years later women represent only 28% of tenured or tenure-track faculty. There is a continued decrease in the percentage of women at these milestones.

Some may argue that women are “choosing” to drop out of science to have a family, but why should women have to make that choice? Surely, there are men in science who have families, and they aren’t leaving the field. There are still still factors above and beyond life choices that are making it difficult for women to attain the highest levels in science.

My point is certainly not to discourage women from entering the sciences. Quite the opposite. Women are valuable employees and can bring strong and important perspectives to their jobs. A recent study showed that groups that include women are better at problem-solving, and with the renewed focus on scientific collaboration, group problem solving will be integral.

Marie Curie once said, “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

Great strides have been made in diminishing the gender gap, but this issue must remain at the forefront so the gap will continue to improve.


Statistics from National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Indicators: 2010 and 2000

Our Rights as an Engaged Citizen

Last Wednesday, the U.S. celebrated Bill of Rights Day. For those of you scratching your head, remember that the Bill of Rights consists of the first 10 amendments of the US Constitution. In honor of Bill of Rights Day, I’d like to write about my favorite amendment - the First Amendment.

The First provides the basic liberties of freedom of expression, speech, religion, press, assembly, along with the right to petition the government. To Americans, and those living in affluent democratic societies, these rights do seem basic or fundamental even though they are still out of reach for much of the world.

So what’s so great about the First? It allows Americans to live without fear of government reprisal, but more importantly, it gives engaged citizens a voice and the power to remake public policy. But this power is only granted to engaged citizens – informed members of society who take the time to vote and advocate.

Yes, we are all busy and inundated with the minutia of our lives. How are we supposed to find the time to advocate, vote, and keep up on the issues? There are countless ways to get involved and range in commitment from sending an email to running for office.

Those who fail to remain engaged have essentially given up their voice; their Constitutional authority to improve the government. Without engaged citizens, we risk ineffective policy making that could impact any one of our lives. So for those reading this today, I urge you to chose action over indifference and exercise your rights as an engaged citizen.

New Voices in Transition

In 2007, New Voices for Research began as a private community for a few dedicated early-career scientists; a place where they could go online to learn about advocacy, practice their skills in a safe environment, and network with like-minded researchers from around the country.

At that time, Stacie Propst, PhD was leading the initiative; a researcher herself, who had transitioned into science policy and wanted to make sure that others in her position would have the tools available to help them along. As Research!America grew and her responsibilities increased, she transitioned leadership of the initiative to me.

Together we developed language describing the initiative and worked to engage more researchers in the private community. However, it seemed silly to restrict so many of the postings to a small community of scientists when there were certainly more out there looking for information about science policy, advocacy, and science communication.

In December of 2008, the New Voices for Research blog launched. Aided by Research!America's talented interns and fellows we began posting five days a week on the topics we thought would most help readers. In the past two years, New Voices has evolved as more of our colleagues joined in as regular bloggers and as other New Voices moved on to pursue their careers or head back to school. Each has left their mark: unique writing styles, subject matter expertise, humor, competitions, projects, a Twitter presence; totaling - as of next week - more than 500 posts.

Despite all of that change, the last few months have been the biggest transition. Our writing team has become smaller and our fearless leader - Stacie - is departing Research!America after nine years to take the lessons she's learned in national advocacy and apply them in her home state of Alabama. Stacie will join the many New Voices operating on the state and local level around the country.

Though this time has been turbulent, we must look to the future. New Voices' mission to empower researchers to communicate about the value of their work and provide tools and resources online can only continue if we all engage. If you believe in New Voices, I ask you to make one simple step today:

Tell us that yours will be a voice that stands up for science.

Words of Inspiration: Eleanor Roosevelt

At the United Nations in 1947

In my interactions with scientists, the reason I hear most for not being more engaged in advocacy and communication is that they just don't have the time to give. I hope you'll find inspiration in these words...


For more from Eleanor Roosevelt on a variety of political and cultural topics, check out her "My Day" columns.

Draft Beer, Not People

Did your pledge to celebrate international beer day yesterday result in waking up on a stranger’s lawn? Did your plan to just stop by happy hour to try the De Molen Donder & Bliksem Doppelbock later result in difficult questions like, “Where are your pants?" Did you sit down to a delicious breakfast of Tylenol and coffee this morning? If you answered yes to any of these questions, valuable information follows.

First the bad news - you have a hangover and no proven cure exists. The good news is that this is a research based blog and you owe it to the research community to try a few of the following possible hangover cures to confirm or deny these hypotheses.

Some ideas of known origins:

• Everyone’s favorite Roman, Pliny the Elder - raw owl eggs, or fried canary

• The Ritz-Carlton hotel, 1938 - Coca-Cola and milk

• Big time drinker Earnest Hemingway – beer and tomato juice

• The Paris World Exposition, 1878 – “The Prairie Oyster" (raw egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, salt and pepper)

• Wayne State University Study, 1957 – fried food, tomato juice, and sexual activity

Ideas of unknown origins (or suggestions no one will admit to)

Hair of the dog – This is the common idea that a little more alcohol will make you feel better. Scientists will tell us that the body is going through alcohol withdrawal and introducing more alcohol will only delay the inevitable. Does this explain how I can eat an entire pizza and still want more pizza the next day? Probably not.

Artichoke – Trying to get into one of these damn things might make you forget about your hangover, but an actual scientific study in 2003 proved that “artichoke extract is not effective in preventing the signs and symptoms of alcohol-induced hangover."

Propranolol – LOL This classic beta blocker will steady your hands, (just ask North Korean pistol shooter Kim Jong Su who used it to win two gold medals in the 2008 Winter Olympics), but won’t do a thing for that tequila taste permanently lodged in the of the back of your throat.

Sugar – there are some suggestions that fructose and glucose inhibit metabolic disturbances induced by alcohol. Don’t be stingy with the maple syrup on your next day’s pancakes.

Want more suggestions? Check out this video.

Have any full proof method's of your own? It's the weekend - you should share!


Want to read more?
Check out these posts from the New Voices archives: The Science of Beer and St. Patrick's Day Special: Beer.

Science and the Supremes

With Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings just completed and a vote expected at some point next month, let’s review a few interesting Supreme Court cases that have impacted science.

Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) – Creationism cannot be taught in science classes
In 1982 the Louisiana state legislature passed the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act”, which required that when evolution was taught in a public school, “creationism science” must be taught as well. Lower courts ruled against Louisiana citing that the actual purpose of “creation science” was to promote a specific religious doctrine. The State of Louisiana appealed to the Supreme Court.

In 1987, in a 7-2 to vote, the Act was ruled unconstitutional. The Supreme Court found that although the Louisiana legislature claimed the Act protected academic freedom, it actually limited a teacher’s ability to decide what scientific principles to teach.

Daubert v. Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) – Scientific evidence can only be presented in court if the scientific method was used
Jason Daubert was born with serious birth defects. His parents believed that Bendectin, a drug used to treat morning sickness manufactured by Dow Pharmaceuticals, was the cause of the defects. The Dauberts sued Dow, and during the trial submitted scientific evidence that the defense claimed was based on questionable animal research and reanalysis of other published studies. A district court sided with Dow Pharmaceuticals when judges on the case determined that the Dauberts' medical evidence was not scientifically valid. The Supreme Court was asked to review the decision and agreed to do so.

In 1993, in a unanimous 9-0 vote, the Court ruled in favor of the Dauberts. The previous standard for submitting scientific evidence vaguely stated "the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs." The Daubert case forced the Court to get more specific, and they outlined the The Standard on Governing Expert Testimony:

1) Testimony must be scientific in nature and grounded in knowledge – this has since been interpreted as meaning that the scientific method must be used
2) The scientific knowledge must assist in the understanding of the specific issues at hand
3) The judge decides if rule 2 is met

Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) – The EPA must regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
In 2003 the EPA decided that under the Clean Air Act, it lacked the authority to regulate carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases for climate change purposes. Twelve U.S. states took the EPA to court in an attempt to get the Agency to change this determination. In 2006, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

In a highly controversial and super charged political trial the Supreme Court voted 5-4 against the EPA. The Court rejected the EPA's argument that the Clean Air Act was not meant to refer to carbon emissions. The four dissenting judges argued that there was not enough evidence to claim that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change, but they found themselves in the minority.

Considering the current political climate, we can expect Elena Kagan to have many opportunities to weigh-in on cases involving science. Issues of cloning, stem cell research, and energy policy will most likely appear before the nine black robed powers in the very near future.

Memorial Day

Whether abroad...
...or at home...
... we celebrate and remember those who have given their lives so that we may live and be free.

O Say Can You See

In honor of Stars & Stripes Forever Day and Armed Forces Day (both this weekend), we're taking a look at the Smithsonian's preservation project of the Star Spangled Banner. Seeing the staff work on the massive flag was the highlight of my first visit to the National American History Museum. Keeping this national treasure in good shape for future generations takes much more than fancy stitching skills.

Some fun facts:

• Conservation specialists analyzed the flag's pH to determine the best method for cleaning it (they used dry sponges first, then an acetone solvent and blotting paper).
  
• A spectrometer was used to analyze colors - including those of stains on the fabric.
• Microscopic images helped determine where the weakest thread fibers were so that the flag could be properly supported.

If you haven't been to the Smithsonian lately, I'd definitely recommend taking a peek in at this masterpiece for both the science and the history. Our national anthem is based on the rising of this flag over Fort McHenry in 1814 (during the War of 1812).

New Voices tips our hat to the original creators of the flag, lyricist Francis Scott Key, the troops that successfully fought the British that September night, and the scientists and historians working together to preserve American history.

Research and Public Health Tackle the Flu Together

We are currently at the end stages of the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic. Over the past few months, both the public health and medical communities have focused on preventing people from getting the flu, through vaccines and also practicing good hand hygiene.

Even though medicine and public health have synchronized messages in regards to the H1N1, unfortunately, we have still seen 16, 713 H1N1 related deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. This number is very large, but compared to the Spanish Influenza’s death toll, which was the world’s first encounter with H1N1, it’s obvious that medical research and public health have saved millions of lives in this current outbreak.

During the Spanish flu, an estimated 3% of the world's population died, which translates to about 50-100 million people. Because so many people died from the Spanish flu, the average life span was reduced by 10 years. Unlike the flu strains that that we are used to seeing, that affects the very young and the very old, this epidemic was the most deadly for people between the ages of 20 and 40, the working population, which led to significant economic consequences worldwide.

At the time, medicine had no way to treat flu patients, so doctors were left to do whatever they deemed necessary in order to try to help patients other. Many doctors tried bleeding patients and giving oxygen. The only treatment that showed some effectiveness were blood transfusions from patients that recovered from the flu to sick patients.

We now why blood transfusions had some sort of effectiveness in treating the flu because of our understanding of anti-bodies and how the immune system can fends off illness but this treatment provided the basic knowledge that lead to the discovery of the flu vaccine in 1945. This was arguably the most significant public health achievement in relation to influenza.

Public health contributed to our knowledge of sanitation, and preventing the spread of the flu from person to person by properly washing our hands; and more recently, using alcohol based hand sanitizer to kill germs and viruses on contact. Social distancing is also a major public health message; staying home from school or work is important in order to prevent others from getting the flu as well.

While people are at home sick, they can treat their flu symptoms themselves, thanks to the discovery and wide spread use of over the counter medications such as Theraflu and fever reducers, like Advil. And more recently, anti-viral medications have become widely available for the treatment of the flu. Antivirals are medicines that act directly on viruses to stop them from multiplying. Both Tamilflu and Relenza have been widely prescribed for H1N1 patients in the current outbreak.

So thanks to the contributions of public health and medical research, the flu has become more manageable, and much of its threat is still in the past.

This is Part 2 of 5 in our Intersection of Medical Research and Public Health series.
Part 1 - The Intersection of Medical Research and Public Health
Part 2 - Research and Public Health Tackle the Flu Together
Part 3 - Today's Epidemic: Childhood Obesity
Part 4 - HIV/AIDS: From Death Sentence to Chronic Disease?
Part 5 - Advocating for the Intersection

The Intersection of Medical Research and Public Health

Public health and medicine are the two largest sectors in the health system in the United States. Historically, they have worked together to solve health problems of the past, but more recently, they have worked together less. Today, we are seeing health problems that are extremely complex, that neither medicine nor public health can solve alone.

For example, obesity has become a major public health issue in the United States; children and adolescents are substantially affected. There are over 25 million children and teenagers are overweight or obese, which is equivalent to one in three young people. Childhood obesity is especially pressing, because overweight children are at higher risk for heart disease and stroke, diabetes, asthma and certain types of cancer. Studies are even showing that this generation is expected to live a shorter life than their parents.

HIV/AIDS is another health problem that is impossible to solve without the intersection of medical research and public health. Over the past decade, less attention has been paid to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic in the United States. The global epidemic — particularly the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa -- has rightfully received most of the focus.

Meanwhile, the prevalence of HIV infection within some U.S. populations now rivals that in some sub-Saharan African countries. For example, more than 1 in 30 adults in Washington, D.C., are HIV-infected — a prevalence higher than that reported in Ethiopia, Nigeria, or Rwanda.

In showing these two examples of health problems, it is clear to see the need of public health and medicine to work together to improve the health of our nation today, and in the future. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing a series of posts in a timeline approach to show how medical research and public health intersect to address health problems in the past (influenza), and how they can continue to do so in the present (childhood obesity) and the future (HIV/AIDS).

This is Part 1 of 5 in our Intersection of Medical Research and Public Health series.
Part 1 - The Intersection of Medical Research and Public Health
Part 2 - Research and Public Health Tackle the Flu Together
Part 3 - Today's Epidemic: Childhood Obesity
Part 4 - HIV/AIDS: From Death Sentence to Chronic Disease?
Part 5 - Advocating for the Intersection

A-B...C-D-C?

In the world of government health agencies, there are so many acronyms that it starts to look like alphabet soup. Under the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), there is the ACF, AoA, AHRQ, ATSDR, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS, NIH, OIG and SAMHSA.

Confused yet?

Other health agencies focus on regulation, research and administering Medicaid and Medicare, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is our nation’s premier organization that is focused on health promotion, disease prevention and public health.

The CDC was founded on July 1, 1946 in Atlanta, GA originally called Communicable Disease Center. In its first years of existence, the CDC focused on fighting malaria by killing mosquitoes.

In 1970, the CDC’s name was changed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and expanded its mission to prevent chronic and infectious diseases, injury, workplace hazards and disability.

Today, the CDC focuses on five strategic areas: supporting state and local health departments, improving global health, implementing measures to decrease leading causes of death, strengthening surveillance and epidemiology, and reforming health policies.

You don't have to be a part of the CDC to care about public health. All around the country, people are recognizing the contributions of public health and drawing attention to issues that are important to improving the public’s health. Get out and get active! April 5-11 is National Public Health Week. Click here to find events happening near you.


This is Part 2 in the Introduction to Federal Agencies series.
Part 1 - Acronyms, Abbreviations and Agencies

Ode to Pi

Comic credit: Savage Chickens

Did you know that the earliest documented use of an approximation of pi was by the Egyptians and Babylonians about 4,000 years ago? The first rigorous calculation didn’t happen until around 250 BC, when Archimedes used the method of exhaustion to approximate pi as 3.14185.

For anyone who is not familiar with the method of exhaustion (and really, you shouldn't be), it can be used to calculate the circumference of a circle by drawing two polygons, one on the outside of the circle and one on the inside. As the number of sides of the polygons increases, the area of the polygon gets closer to the circumference of the circle, as illustrate d in the picture below. In his calculation, Archimedes used a 96 sided polygon! I’m exhausted just thinking about it…

Image credit: Methods of Exhauation Wikipedia Page

Pi Day is coming up on March 14th. Pi is a constant that has an almost cult following. One mystery that has always baffled me is the obsession people have with memorizing the digits of pi. I even stumbled across a listing for ranks of reciting pi while juggling.

To solve equations for my math and science classes, I always used 3.14 to approximate pi. But how close does this get you to the correct answer? Believe it or not, for most applications, 3.14 is a good enough estimate. However, if you wanted to use pi to calculate an extremely large circumference, such as one that fits the universe, 3.14 would not get you a very accurate answer. In fact, to calculate a circle of that size within the distance of a single atom, you still would not need to use more than 39 decimal places of pi. But that hasn’t stop mathematicians from competing to have the world record for most digits of pi calculated. Fabrice Bellard is a computer scientist who has recently claimed that he may hold the new record, having calculated pi to 2.7 trillion digits!

Here are a few fun facts about Pi and Pi Day:

• Pi Day was first celebrated in 1988 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco
• Pi Day also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday
• Pi is not limited to circles, but also used in equations for statistics, physics and economics
• A billion decimals of pi printed in standard font would stretch from New York City to Kansas.
• On Star Trek they rid the Enterprise’s computer of an evil entity by sending the computer into an infinite loop by ordering the computer to "compute to the last digit the value of pi."

How are you celebrating Pi Day?

Searching for a Link between Health and the Environment

A great motto I try to live by is “everything in moderation.” But there some things that, even in moderation, are not safe.

The second World War marked a dramatic increase in the production of synthetic chemicals; compounds that do not occur naturally. Man-made chemicals were developed to be used as pesticides, industrial solvents, and cleaning products. Initially, they were used widely without much thought about their impact on human health. Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book Silent Spring changed everything. The book pointed to concrete evidence that chemicals, such as DDT, were having lasting impacts on the environment and health.

Today we understand the potential adverse effects the chemicals we use every day can have on our bodies. Ensuring that they are safe for their intended use, however, has turned out to be a challenging problem. Increasingly, researchers are voicing concerns of possible lasting harmful effects on one specific group: our children. Experiments have still been largely unable to determine the exact consequences of chemical exposures during development and can only provide us with inexact correlations to a cluster of illnesses.

The National Children’s Study has been developed to find answers for these unanswered questions. We are seeing the incidence of chronic diseases, such as asthma and obesity, occurring at rates never seen before. But we do not yet know if these illnesses are a result of our genetics, our exposure to environmental chemicals, or the interaction of the two. Understanding how exposures at critical periods impact our children’s long-term health will enable us to work towards the prevention of these illnesses.

The National Children’s Study is designed to follow the development of 100,000 children from before their birth to 21 years of age. By sampling environmental exposures for a nationally representative group of children, it will attempt to determine a link between environmental factors and human health.

Currently they are recruiting pregnant mothers in their first trimester. It may seem like a large commitment since there will be a study representative visiting your home to collect samples from you, your child and the environment until they are 21. However, the bulk of the visits will be when the child is young, and are predicted to be only every two years once the child is older.

This is a landmark study that should revolutionize environmental health. Would you be willing to participate?

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Today is National Peanut Butter Day! This weekend I celebrated in advance and had two PB&J sandwiches; heavy on the peanut butter and the (reduced sugar) jelly. Here are some random facts about peanut butter:

• Americans eat about 700 million pounds of peanut butter each year.
• Women and children prefer creamy, while most men opt for chunky.
• People who become hysterical when peanut butter sticks to the roof of their mouth have 'arachibutyrophobia'.

Other than as a healthy snack or sandwich spread, did you know that peanuts have LOTS of uses? African American scientist, botanist, professor and inventor George Washington Carver is credited with conducting years of research on the peanut.

Carver’s 1916 research, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, rescued the South’s economy. In the early 1900’s, boll weevils were destroying the cotton crops in Alabama. Farmers began to plant peanuts as their cash crop. Instead of cotton oil, mills were converted to make peanut oil.

During further research, Carver found more than 300 new uses for the peanut. He invented peanut-based foods, beverages, medicines, household products and cosmetics. Some of his most surprising inventions include laundry detergent, mayonnaise, diesel fuel, glue, rubber, shaving cream and hand lotion.

How do you plan on celebrating Peanut Butter Day?

Temple Grandin: Innovator. Author. Activist. Autistic.

This Saturday, February 6th HBO will be premiering their movie, Temple Grandin, which is a biographical account of a high-functioning autistic woman who managed defy all expectations, earning her Ph.D. in Animal Sciences and becoming a respected scientist and autism advocate.

This movie couldn't have been released at a more important time, as The Lancet, a leading medical journal, formally retracted the seminal paper linking autism to vaccinations.

Some history...
In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield and co-workers published an article in the Lancet that suggested a possible link between autism and the common childhood vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella. The paper sparked widespread concern over the safety of vaccinations, and resulted in an increase in the number of parents who chose not to have their children vaccinated. Yesterday, the Lancet fully retracted the paper in response to the ruling by U.K.’s General Medical Council that Dr. Wakefield acted dishonestly and that the specific study, which started the anti-vaccine movement, did not actually demonstrate a causal relationship between autism and vaccines.

Autism is a disease that affects approximately 1 in 110 children. Autism is diagnosed on a spectrum and no two patients have exactly the same symptoms. There has been a lot of research into the causes and potential treatments for autism, but at this point very little is known.

Two of your New Voices bloggers got to see a sneak peek of the movie last night. Here's what they thought:

Sarah’s reaction
Temple Grandin highlighted major strides made for the widespread recognition of the human component of autism. At the start, the movie showed the struggles a mother faced when her daughter was diagnosed with autism in the 1950’s. Doctors in that era were quick to suggest that the solution for the disease was institutionalizing autistic children. They believed that the cause of autism was poor parenting and that there was no potential for recovery. But by the end of the movie, in the 1980s, parents were trying to get more involved and were seeking out information about the condition and trying to play an active role in their children’s treatment.

The movie also provided insight into the autistic mind through the story of the life of Temple Grandin. It related difficulties autistic people have navigating social interactions by showing how Temple did not understand how to use her face to convey emotions. The movie also tried to give viewers a glimpse into the way autistic children think. The director used series of rapid pictures to convey the way Temple’s mind uses imagery to process information. As a result, the film successfully juxtaposed some advantages and disadvantages of her pictorial reasoning.

Heather's impression
Temple Grandin is a mix between Rain Man, Forrest Gump, and October Sky. From animated scenes in Temple's mind to the portrayal of her human and animal research, this movie gives anyone who isn't "normal" a heroine to look up to and love.

The film captured the essence of not only Temple's view of the world, but the world's view of her. Autism is difficult for even researchers to define, so it isn't so unbelievable that many people don't understand the disease. We can only hope that as stories like Temple's become more mainstream, that discrimination against autistic individuals will decrease.

This is a must see film about an incredible woman who has made an amazing impact in both medical and animal research. She also happens to be autistic.

The Aftermath of Tuskegee

... continued from Remembering Tuskegee.

Twenty-seven years later, on May 16, 1997, President Clinton formally apologized for the Tuskegee Experiment, stating,

“The United States government did something that was wrong -- deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens.

To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry.”

Thankfully, the scientific community has learned from the lessons of this event. Tuskegee University (formerly known as Tuskegee College) founded the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, ensuring the ethical and equal treatment of minorities in clinical and public health studies.

"The entire history of health care in the United States has been shamefully blighted by a long series of racial inequalities," said Dr. Marian Gray Secundy, the first Director of the Center. "As a result, a legacy of distrust has been handed down from one generation to the next. But this Bioethics Center bears great hope. It takes us to the critical next step in changing the course of history for people of color."

Looking backward, it is very easy to see where the research and public health community went wrong with what occurred in Tuskegee. Even though this may seem like such a long time ago, this study directly impacted our parent’s and grandparent’s generation. Research and health care communities have much progress in bioethics, informed consent and cultural competency.
To continue these successes, it is important to put these lessons into action. Here are ways that we can actively recruit and build relationships with minority populations to continue with clinical research.

1. Try to think outside the box for ways to recruit minority patients. A group in Atlanta found that by working with barbershop owners, they were able to encourage more Black men to get prostate cancer screenings.
2. Build relationships with community leaders. Pastors, small business owners, local officials and other community workers are strongly linked to their community. They are often able to talk to others on a level that they will understand and have already built a sense of trust with the people that they serve.
3. Seek patients in the places that they already receive care. Federally qualified health centers (also known as community health centers) are located in areas of high medical need; both urban and rural. They service a high number of minority patients, as well as a large amount of uninsured patients. Building relationships with the health care providers, management and patients can also bridge the gap into increased participation.

Post contributed by: Kimberly Brown

Remembering Tuskegee

Last week, Jackie advocated for the need to include more minorities in clinical trial research. In the African American community, there is a specific apprehension to take part in clinical research. For many African Americans, the Syphilis Study in Macon County, Alabama heightened longstanding suspicions of the U.S. health care system.

Even after more than 25 years from the ending of the study, apprehensions still linger. There are many Black Americans that refuse to participate in clinical trials, donate blood and even refuse basic medical care. Why is this? To understand, we need to look at minority involvement from a historical prospective.

From the years 1932 to 1972, 600 men (399 with syphilis and 201 without) were recruited from Macon County, Alabama to observe how the disease affected Black patients as opposed to White patients. The principal investigators (Taliaferro Clark, Oliver Wenger, Raymond Vonderler, John Heller and Eugene Dibble) theorized that Black patients were more susceptible to cardiovascular damage from the syphilis; whereas white patients suffered more neurological impairments. Data was collected on the natural course of the disease through physical exams and routine checkups.

That doesn’t seem so bad, right? Well, at the time, it wasn’t. Treatments for syphilis during the 1930s were poisonous and often not effective. However, as time progressed, the ethics of the study came into question. The Macon County community was aware of the study that was being conducted.

The men, for the most part, were sharecroppers in one of the poorest parts of Alabama, and were not told of the seriousness of their disease. Instead, they were just told that they had “bad blood”. In exchange for their participation in the study, the participants were provided medical treatment for minor illnesses from “government doctors”, burial insurance (provided that they agreed to autopsy before they were buried), free hot meals during clinic visits and transportation to and from the hospital.

By 1947, penicillin was approved as a clinically effective treatment for syphilis. Instead of terminating the study and providing treatment, the principle investigators in the Tuskegee Experiment continued their work, blocking their patients from taking penicillin. Patients that questioned the fact that they were not receiving any therapeutic treatment were warned of the “dangers” of penicillin. In other cases, patients were assuaged by placebos in order for the researchers to continue their study on the progression of the disease.

No one questioned the ethics of the study until Peter Buxtun, a venereal disease researcher for the US Public Health Service, sent a letter to the national director of the Division of Venereal Diseases. The CDC reaffirmed the study’s significance and ensured that it went to completion. The National Medical Association (representing African American physicians) and the American Medical Association backed the CDC’s statement.

In spite of the opposition, Buxtun went to the Washington Star with the story and the following day it became front page news in the New York Times. Senator Edward Kennedy called congressional hearings and from there, the CDC and the PHS were required to terminate the study in Tuskegee.

After 40 years of mistreatment, the PHS finally ended their study in 1972, after constant and negative publicity. At its conclusion, only 74 of the test subjects were alive; 28 of the original 399 men died of syphilis, 100 died of related complications, 40 of their wives were infected and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.

Check back tomorrow for the continuation of this post.

State of the Union

Tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Eastern, President Barack Obama is going to give a State of the Union address. I’m not going to speculate on the content, or tell you what I hope he’ll discuss. Rather, I’d like to give you a little history on the State of the Union and tell you why you should be listening tomorrow night.

“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

-Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution

The first State of the Union address was given by George Washington on January 8, 1790. Since then, every president has either given a speech or written a memo (that was later read aloud to Congress) on an annual basis that detailed where the nation was and where it was going. This may seem a rather dated tradition in an age where almost everyone has access to national news, but the value isn’t in the reporting of the actual state of the union, it is in the framing of the details in the address.

That may not seem clear, so let me explain. There are certain facts about our country. Then there is the interpretation of those facts. Considering the breadth of geography, people, and political opinions – we don't all have the same vision of America. As citizens, we should know our leader’s thoughts on what is important (you can tell he thinks it’s important if he includes it in the speech) and why it is important.

Here at New Voices we do our best to help provide resources that empower you to become better communicators and advocates for research and science. Part of being good at communicating and advocacy is being informed; knowing where our elected officials stand on the issues and what they plan to do (so we can either encourage or discourage it).

I encourage you to take the time to listen to the State of the Union tomorrow night. If you won’t be home or near a radio, record it. If you can’t record it, we’ll have a link to a transcript up on Thursday (and we know you have Internet, or you wouldn’t be reading this). We don’t all have to agree with the president, but we have a duty to know how he sees our nation.

A Brief History of Inclusion Policies

When we last visited the From Ideas to Treatments series, we were discussing diversity in clinical trials...

Inclusion of all groups is important, but it's taken some time to get federal policies established to focus on getting women and minorities enrolled in clinical research trials.

In the 1970's an Federal Drug Administration (FDA) policy actually barred women of birthing age from participating in trials. Seems counter-intuitive, huh? Why keep women out, when we know it's important to see their reaction to these drugs? Well, in part, the government was worried that their participation would put any unborn children at risk. Given the recently discovered effects of thalidomide, its difficult to fault them for this.

Thalidomide was a drug used to treat nausea, so of course, it was widely prescribed to pregnant women for morning-sickness. It wasn't until a generation of kids was born that the link between thalidomide and birth defects was discovered. This event played a large role in the reasoning behind the FDA ban.

For minorities, by the 1970s, there was a distrust that existed, particularly in the African-American community. It was a distrust for clinical research trials, and it stemmed from the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a horrible event in clinical research history that took advantage of African American participants in the most unethical way.

In the 1980s, the U.S. government realized its mistake in banning women from trials, and began to adopt policies of inclusion for both women and minority populations. This led to the passage of the NIH revitalization in 1993. This act required both women and minorities to be represented in clinical research trials, and charged NIH with defining the policy.

Over the next 5-8 years, the remaining federal agencies sponsoring research followed suit. After receiving a less than stellar report in 2000 by the Government Accountability Office concerning NIH’s implementation of its policies, NIH further revised its policy. This revision specifically called for Phase III trials to include women and minorities in a representative number, and highly recommending analysis of these groups.

In recommending analysis, they also made the point that inclusion, while important, is not the last step. Having the diverse representation is important, but how useful is it if you’re not asking the obvious questions: 1) Do females show a difference in response compared to males? and 2) Do minorities show a difference in response compared to one another or the non-minority population?

In the next two posts in this series, we'll take a look at the answers to both of those questions.


This is Part 10 of 13 in our From Ideas to Treatments series.
Part 1 - From Ideas to Treatments
Part 2 - Basic Research: It Starts with an Idea
Part 3 - You're an Animal!
Part 4 - Can I care about animals and do research too?
Part 5 - Regulations for Animal Research
Part 6 - Clinical Research Trials
Part 7 - Patient Safety in Clinical Trials: IRB Approval
Part 8 - Recruitment
Part 9 - Health Disparities in Clinical Research
Part 10 - A Brief History of Inclusion Policies
Part 11 - Breaking News: Women and Men are Different
Part 12 - Including Minorities in Clinical Trial Research
Part 13 - Bringing From Ideas to Treatments Home

12 Months of New Voices

Thursday is the blogoversary of New Voices! We'll be celebrating all week and today we're joining in this meme (read: Internet game that has lots of people do the same thing so you can learn about each other).

The rules for this blog meme are simple.

Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.

I encourage all of you to do the same, and leave us a note in the comments so we can come by and check out a year (or maybe less) of your blogging.

January 5, 2009
How to: Give a Tour of Your Lab
So, you have a 6-color FACS machine, an industrial-size centrifuge, and three hundred cages of morbidly obese mice.

February 3, 2009
Getting Started as an Advocate for Research
Profile: Dr. Robert Wells, PhD
Robert A. Welch Endowed Professor of Chemistry
Director, Center for Genome Research at the Institute of Bioscience and Technology, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Houston, Texas

March 2, 2009
Being a Spokesperson
Last week, we commented a little on being a spokesperson for science. Being a spokesperson for science is great, but being a good spokesperson for science is even better.

April 1, 2009
Research on Cherry Blossom Trees
Last week I wrote about research going on at the National Arboretum and asked if anyone knew more about it.

May 1, 2009
Climate Change and Health: Mental Health
Over the past two weeks you've read about a number of health implications of climate change, from cardiovascular and respiratory issues exacerbated by heat to vector-borne diseases like malaria and Lyme disease.

June 1, 2009
TV Science is Not Real Science
I don't watch a lot of popular shows, but after some prodding by a colleague here at New Voices, I watched an episode of House.

July 1, 2009
Speak out for Research Funding Now
Urge your members of Congress to support robust funding for NIH, CDC, AHRQ and NSF in FY 2010.

August 3, 2009
August is ____ Month
As we roll merrily into August, there are lots of special health issues to highlight.

September 1, 2009
Science and Entrepreneurship: An Introduction
Which of these statements is true?

Science = Mmm . . . this frozen pizza sure tastes good. *Sigh.* Wish I could afford something else for dinner.
Science = I'm glad I spent a gagillion hours on that research project, just to put someone else's name on it. *Sigh.* I wish I were my own boss.
Science = A business opportunity to create high paying jobs, keep what you earn, and be your own boss.

October 1, 2009
The Quest for Cures: Horizons in Cancer Research
Today Research!America hosted “The Quest for Cures: Horizons in Cancer Research” on Capitol Hill.

November 2, 2009
November is Diabetes Awareness Month
With obesity and type 2 diabetes on the rise in the United States, it is especially important to acknowledge National Diabetes Awareness month.

December 1, 2009
World AIDS Day 2009
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was established in 1987 as a telling symbol of the way HIV and AIDS effects people - it is one disease that manifests itself differently in each person.


Thanks to all of my fellow New Voices bloggers for their contributions over the past year. We wouldn't have 12 months of blogging without you!